For long we have felt that there is a larger irony in terms of the tradition that vAsudeva sArvabhauma represented. vAsudeva belonged the tradition of nyAya that was revitalized by ga~Ngesha. His legacy in this regard was passed on to the one-eyed raghunAtha tarka-shiromaNi who in turn passed it to his students like mathurAnAtha, harirAma and jagadIsha [Footnote 1]. They were in turn was succeeded by the great student of harirAma, gadAdhara bhaTTa, who revived the syncretic vaisheShika discourse among the proponents of navanyAya. He was wide-ranging scholar who in addition to his work in nava-nyAya was also an accomplished tAntrika who wrote a multi-faceted work on the deployment of the navArNa mantra of chaNDikA. However, we may say that gadadhAra’s greatest contribution was the restoration of the true vaisheShika spirit into the system: It said that as he lay dying his well-wishers asked him to think of the Ishvara, the cause of the universe, that he might attain a favorable gati upon death. He instead responded “pIlavaH pIlavaH pIlavaH ||” (atoms, atoms, atoms; we see triplication as his subscription of the vaisheShika tryaNu instead of the dvyaNu typical of the nyAya tradition). The last notable scholar in the line of gadAdhara was our coethnic annam bhaTTa who composed the tarka-saMgraha. It is in examining this capstone production of the great atomic tradition that we find a great irony: Did most of our paNDita-s fail to comprehend what for us is a guiding mahAvAkya:
kANAdaM pANinIyaM cha sarva-shAstropakArakaM ||
Some traditional paNDita coethnics of mine, who are certainly great scholars of saMskR^ita, interpret this vAkya as meaning: “Logic and grammar are essential aids to understand any shAstra”. But we would interpret it somewhat differently and certainly can defend the interpretation rather firmly: “Atomic and pANinian analytical devices are essential aids to understand any shAstra”. We take this to represent the essential spirit of kaNAda, the promulgator of atomic thinking and paNini, the promulgator of a certain analytical technique that uses axioms on side and principle of homology on the other (as expounded by his commentator pata~njali).Now the system of vaisheShika and nyAya have two major frameworks for knowledge: The atomism and logic. kanAda’s main thrust is the former, while that of akShapAda is the latter.When the vAsudeva sArvabhauma revitalized the nyAya system by building on the school of ga~Ngesha it was the domain of the knowledge of logic that got emphasized. However, it was not that the domain of the knowledge of matter was missing in this revival – indeed it was expressed, just as it was emphasized by kaNAda, by gadAdhara and annaM bhaTTa and even utilized rather clearly by ga~Ngesha in his explanation of sound waves in the tattva-chintAmaNi. Yet, most of the exponents of the school focused primarily on the domain of knowledge of logic rather than that of matter. Thus, we have some of the most brilliant minds in one of the last flash of Sanskritic tradition devote their energies to the development of the knowledge of logic. No doubt they achieved some rather deep insights in this regard, yet to us in a sense they are boring and lacking a certain “fulfillment” in terms of explanatory potential. This to us is big irony – nyAya-vaisheShika had been revived in times when the Hindu world was in rather dire straits under the grip of the desert delusion and the some its best brains had been applied to it, but they choose to expend it on the arid fields of logic rather than the fertile pastures of the knowledge of matter. And all this was despite the brilliant guiding principles being stated right there in their texts.

We state these simple guiding principles [Footnote 3] that open the tattva-saMgraha in full because we are of the opinion that these are indeed sound basic principles for investigating the universe:
dravya-guNa-karma-sAmAnya-visheSha-samavAyaabhAvAH sapta padArthAH ||

This might be interpreted as: atomic or quantum entities, properties, force (literally action), generalities, specifics, inherence, absence are the seven knowable things (j~neya) or validly cognizable things (prameya) or nameable things (abhideya). We interpret dravya as atomic or quantum entities rather than matter because this is how the nava-nyAya presentation of annaM bhaTTa understands its. As will be seen in the next principle dravya includes not just matter but also other entities that are considered to exist as quanta or atoms (these terms should not be confused with their meaning in modern science, but in their basic sense as particles). This number of padArtha-s (7) is variable in different presentations of the nyAya-vaisheShika school – some old expositors like vAtsyAyana name 7, while the dasha-padArtha-shAstra names 10. However, padArtha-s of this system sharply differ from that of shaMkArAdvaita: two padArtha-s chit (consciousness) and achit (not-consciousness) or rAmAnujavAda: which includes the above two and nArAyaNa.

tatra dravyANi pR^ithivy-ap-tejo-vAyv-AkAsha-kAla-dig-Atma-manAmsi-navaiva ||

This might be interpreted as: Nine alone of these are the atomic entities: solid, liquid, heat/light, gas, vacuum, time, space, consciousness and mind. A questioner would have asked if mind deserves the status of an independent atomic entity.

rUpa-rasa-gandha-sparsha-saMkhyA-parimANa-pR^ithaktva-saMyoga-vibhAga-paratva-aparatva-gurutva-dravatva-sneha-shabda-buddhi-sukha-duHkhechChA-dveSha-prayatna-dharmAdharma-saMskArAsh chaturviMshati guNAH ||

This might be interpreted as: Form/color, taste, smell, touch, number, magnitude, separate independent existence, conjunction (bond-forming), disjunction (bond-breaking), distance, proximity, weight, fluidity, viscosity, response to vibrations, cognition, pleasure, pain, desire, dislike, volition, dharma, adharma, tendency are the 24 qualities. In our worldview these guNa-s are divided among the different quantum entities(the dravya-s) with some limited to only to certain dravya-s. Thus, the physical guNa-s (first 15) belong to matter, energy, vacuum, time and space. Though not all of them have each of the physical guNa-s: For example, fluidity and viscosity are limited to a subset like gases and liquids. The qualia (16-20) in contrast solely belong to the atman, whereas the last 4 belong to manas.

The view of pata~njali in his mahAbhAShya is:
kaH guNaH nAma |
sattve nivishate .apaiti pR^ithag jAtiShu vartate |
Adheyash-cha akriyAjash-cha so .asattvaprakR^itir guNaH ||
upaiti anyat | jahAti anyat | dR^iShTaH dravyAntareShu .api | vAchakaH sarvali~NgAnAm dravyAt anyaH guNaH smR^itaH |

Thus, the view of pata~njali on the guNa might be interpreted as: The guNa is something which inheres only in substance (or what may be mapped on to dravya-s of nyAya-vaisheShikA), and under certain situations ceases to be present, which is found in the different types of substances, which is conserved in some cases not conserved in others. This view of the vaiyAkaraNa-s is clearly inherited from that of nyAya-vaisheShika.

.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo.
Footnote 1: The general hagiographic tradition holds that vAsudeva indeed studied with jaideva mishra who is known as pakShadhara. It is said that vAsudeva’s student the one-eyed raghunAtha later went to debate with the old pakShadhara in mithilA to uphold the name of the navadvIpa school. The old paNdita derided raghunAtha: “indra has a thousand eyes, rudra three and all others two, who are you the one eyed one?” Nevertheless, he let raghunAtha in to his academy to attend his lectures. On one occasion pakShadhara was challenged by raghunAtha and the former was on the verge of defeat, when rather than answering raghunAtha, pakShadhara insulted him using offensive language. Furious over this, raghunAtha decided to kill pakShadhara and hid in his house with a sword. That night he noticed that pakShadhara was relaxing on a swing with his wife on the terrace. Slowly advancing raghunAtha hid himself behind the doorpost and waited. There he heard pakShadhara’s wife ask him if there was anything more beautiful than the autumn moon that was shining upon them. pakShadhara responded that there was indeed one – the mind of a young scholar from va~Nga who had defeated him in a debate earlier in the morning – his mind is brighter than the moon he said. Then raghunAtha is said to have dropped his sword and ran and fell at the feet of pakShadhara, who forgave his murderous intention. The next day pakShadhara declared to his academy that raghunAtha was the supreme paNDita of nyAya from then on. With that the center of nyAya became the navadvIpa school, where raghunAtha and vAsudeva erected a statue to honor the old pakShadhara.

Footnote 2: Yet it is characteristic of the Hindu milieu that such contrasting views coexist without much of a social rupture. Indeed, reactionary vaiShNava bhakti has been a rather common phenomenon in various parts of India in medieval history.

Footnote 3: These are indeed simple principles that must be taught to children as annaM bhaTTa clarifies: “bAlAnAM sukhabodhAya krIyate tarka-saMgrahaH |” For pleasurably enlightening children I have made the tarka-saMgraha.

continued…

The narrative itself goes thus:
In the former times the gods led by the city-busting indra and aided by viShNu had smashed the asura-s in the great battle between them. Agitated with violent wrath, the bhArgava purohita of the asura-s sacrificed a goat and offered it as an oblation in the fire. As his fertilizing sweat fell into the fire and mingled with its luster, the goat became a goat-headed asura, ChAgAsura. Covering heaven and earth with his gigantic form, expanding to the peak of the highest realm, the terrifying ChAgAsura asked the bhArgava, as to what needed to be done. Commanded by the bhR^igu it fell upon the gods to devastate their realms. Uttering thunderous roars and emitting a great blaze from his mouth ChAgAsura rushed around the three worlds destroying and burning all his path. The gods shaken by this attack went to the god rudra smeared with ashes from funeral pyres and asked him to counter the violent asura generated by the bhArgava. From the fire leaping out due to the opening of rudra’s third eye emerged a terrible bhUta. He commanded by rudra to crush the bhArgava and burn ChAgAsura. The bhUta chased the terrified bhArgava through the three world until the bhArgava used his yoga to reduce himself to a minute form and entered rudra through his ear. Coursing within rudra’s body he saw the entire universe contained within it. Filled with wonder the bhArgava sought refuge in rudra. Then rudra said he was pleased with the bhArgava and making him his son, granted him the status of becoming the brightest planet (Venus). Thus, rudra released him through his semen and hence, the bhArgava’s name became shukra. Thus, released shukra worshipped the cresent moon-bearing rudra. Then terrified ChAgAsura fell flat with his face down at the feet of the bhUta and surrendered. shukra then asked him to seek forgiveness from rudra for his sinful acts. He sought the boon of having a residence with the good seated atop him, so that he too might receive the worship as the gods are being worshiped. To this rudra answered that since he as asked for a residence he shall be called vAstupa and the deva-s will be seated upon him with his face down. Who ever embarks on a construction will worship him as the vAstoShpati.

This narrative may be compared to that found in the matsya purANa chapter 252: In that as rudra was fighting andhaka, each time andhaka’s blood would fall to the ground a new andhaka would emerge. As rudra was strenuously engaging in battle with the andhaka-s his fertilizing sweat fell to the ground and from it arose the terrible vAstu. This being then drank up the blood of andhaka before it could touch the ground and he was finally killed by rudra. But there after vAstu performed tapasya and obtained a boon from rudra to eat the universe. As he proceeded to do so, the gods fell upon him, flattened him face down on the ground and sat upon him, each in one part. He surrendered and received the boon that he will receive bali when ever one embarks on a construction.

Now, the fertilizing sweat of rudra is an ancient motif that is already seen in the mahAbhArata where in the jvarapuruSha who destroys dakSha’s yAga originates from a drop of rudra’s sweat (in MBH 12.274). A similar account for the emergence of jvarapuruSha has been incorporated into the narrative of the destruction of the dakSha yAga by rudra in the brahma purANa (Chapter 39). This being, the personified fever, manifested as all kinds of diseases and also as fossil fuels. In the vAmana purANa (chapter 70), as rudra was fighting the final battle with andhaka, his sweat mixing with andhaka’s blood gave rise to a beautiful goddess charchikA. Clad in lion skin, she licked up the blood of andhaka and was installed on the mound of hai~NgulatA (Now in Balochistan, TSP, where the shrine is in a precarious state under the assault of the marUnmatta-s). Those drops of rudra’s sweat that fell to the ground gave rise to a red being kuja who also drank the blood of andhaka. After his services, rudra made him the planet Mars. A similar account disconnected from andhaka is narrated in the rudra saMhitA, pArvatI khaNDa (chapter 10), of the shiva purANa. Here shiva being separated from sati is lost in tapasya. The sweat from his forehead due his exertions fell on the earth and gave rise to a red four armed being. He was suckled by pR^ithivI and was made the planet Mars by rudra. A similar account, this time involving the fertilizing sweat of umA is given for the origin of andhaka himself in the rudra saMhitA, yuddha khaNDa (chapter 42) of the shiva purANa. When rudra and umA were sporting on the eastern ridges of the mandara mountain, umA closed the eyes of rudra with her hands causing darkness. Her hands sweating from the contact with the heat from his third eye mixed with his giving rise to a blind, black, deformed and terrible being. He was covered with fine hair all over his body and had matted locks. He cried, danced and sang and kept darting his tongue like a snake. This hideous being was given by rudra to the daitya hiraNyAkSha as his son and became the lord of the daitya-s after hirANyAkSha and hiraNyakashipu were killed by viShNu. It becomes clear that these motifs were inserted into the andhaka narrative because we have an ancient version of the andhaka narrative from the harivaMsha, viShNu-parva 86-87, which has none of these motifs in them. The saiddhAntika narrative is further unusual in moving the fertilizing sweat motif from rudra to the bhArgava. The entry into rudra’s body by the bhArgava is also an old motif that seen by itself in the MBH, which is combined with the andhaka narrative in various paurANika accounts like the one from the vAmana purANa and yuddha khaNDa of the rudra saMhitA. The narrative of the emergence of ChAgAsura from the ritual fire is also paralleled by old motif of tvAShtR^i generating vR^itra from a fire ritual.

The evolution of these narratives can be represented as a graph (above). Here the versions approximating the ancestral versions are shown to the left along with example texts in which they occur. The fertilizing sweat motif could be of older provenance, though in the current context it emerges as an integral element of the narrative of the destruction of dakSha’s yaj~na. These then recombine in various ways as shown by the pathways leading to the narratives on the right. The andhaka narrative serves as a locus for insertion of other motifs into it; hence , it is shown in disjointed form, accommodating those insertions. Of course the motif might be inherited in many different ways: 1) directly without much alteration; 2) with rapid evolution but retain the essential character; 3) or through transfer of attributes to different characters. There may be duplications like the fertilizing sweat myth is duplicated to give rise to both Mars and the goddess charchikA. It is interesting to note that the origin myths of two planets are connected in this collection. Some of these are famous old motifs of astronomical phenomena encoded as myths. For example, the tale of the swallowing of the bhArgava encodes the disappearance of Venus during its conjunction with the sun (symbolized as rudra) and it reappearance as the famous shining drop (alluded to in mantra-s of the R^igveda and atharvaveda) – the semen of rudra. Of course it should be kept in mind that the graph shown above does not include other narrative motifs that are not discussed here: These include the mAtR^ikA motifs from the kaumAra narrative, which are inserted into versions of the andhaka episode (e.g. kUrma purANa and rudra saMhitA, yuddha khaNDa, shiva purANa). In the kUrma purANa these are transferred to nR^isiMha from kumAra while being inserted into the andhaka episode. The goddess shuShka-revatI is generated by viShNu in alternative version of the matsya purANa, who plays the same role as charchikA in drinking the blood of andhaka. Here again we notice the transfer of shuShka-revatI from the kaumAra narratives to viShNu in the context of the andhaka myth.

An examination of the above figure immediately reminds one of the modularity and recombination observed in biological systems, in particular that seen in organization of genes in operons in prokaryotes and of domains in proteins. In those circles there has been the discussion (in large part due to workers like Lynch) if effective population size or selection has been responsible for the emergence of complex modular architectures. Indeed, this question becomes particularly pertinent at certain evolutionary transitions such as the origin of the eukaryotes and the emergence of metazoans, where one could make a case that the emergence of numerous new protein domain architectures had a role in the biological features characteristic of those transitions. Interestingly, even in the mythosphere we observe that certain transitions were accompanied by a proliferation of recombination events. In particular, the rise of the shaiva, vaiShNava, kaumAra, and shAkta shAsana-s saw a proliferation of myths along with motif recombination. We would tend to argue that the expansion of these shAsana-s was the primary driving force the emergence of these myths. Now does this imply that the expansion of the shAsana-s resulted in: 1) A spread of the mythic memes over a larger number of meme-bearers thereby allowing diversification as it fostered the emergence of several subpopulations under a given shAsana? Or 2) The rise of the new shAsana-s specifically selected for certain mythic motif combinations which were favorable for their own doctrinal positions: the ChAgAsura myth certain seems to support this idea. Now again one could ask if there is a selection process involved or whether the new recombinant narratives are designed in a directed fashion. We suspect that there are probably certain favored recombination pathways which are then under a certain type of selection in the narrative-maker’s brain. Testing this idea would be an interesting challenge.

In 705 CE, amoghavajra was born in Samarkand to a brAhmaNa teacher from either Prayag or Kashi and his Iranian wife. His father died when he was 10 years old and he moved to the chInadesha with his mother and uncle. There he became a student of the great nAstika tAntrika vajrabodhi, a brAhmaNa from Kanchipuram, who settled in chInadesha after a long journey in the east. From Kerala, vajrabodhi had gone to Shrilanka and from there he went to the Nicobar islands. From there he went to Sumatra and finally reached Kwangchow, where he became a guru of the chIna princess Tu-ku-kuei-fei. Along with amoghavajra and his Korean student Hyecho praj~nAvikrama he taught several aspects of the tAntrika lore to numerous chIna students. In 730s amoghavajra succeeded vajrabodhi as the guru of the realm. In 741 CE the nationalist legalistic Han faction had an edict passed to kick out all Indian and Korean guru-s and students from China. In this period amoghavajra went to Java and then to India to learn under different AchAryas in the high universities of bhAratavarSha. In 746 CE he was called back to chInadesha to perform tAntrika rituals for the emperor of all chIna-s Xuan-zong and the princess Hua-yang was made his adopted daughter. In 751 CE the chIna army at peak of its military glory came to face to face with the Islamic jihad at Talas. The result was disastrous for the former and the Tang war machine met one of its worst defeats in a long time. This was quickly followed by another drubbing at the hands of the Qarluq Turks led by their yabghu Tun Bilge. On the other side of the chIna world, the Tang generals attempted and invasion of Thailand and met yet another crushing defeat at the hands of the rAjA of Thailand. This shook the Tang empire paving the way for the eventual rebellion of the Irano-Mongolian rokShana (An Lu-shan). In course of these events the defense of the Tang border zones came under prince Wumin of Xiping, who invited amoghavajra to perform abhichArika rituals. Fearing his tAntrika rites, in course of his takeover of the chIna throne, rokShana’s captured amoghavajra, while he was translating the tattva-saMgraha, a yoga tantra. Subsequently, his patron prince Wumin was also captured and killed by rokShana’s son. But in 757 CE the chIna forces defeated the son of rokShana and killed him to restore Tang power, giving a chance for amoghavajra to escape. However, shortly thereafter the chIna-s suffered a defeat at the hand of the Uighur Turks and faced an attack from the Tibetans. At this point the Tang emperor Su-zong called upon amoghavajra to perform great tAntrika rituals to purify the palace of the emperor and a jayAbhisheka for the survival of the Tang empire. In these rituals he deployed secret mantra-s to the vinAyaka yAmala to prevent vighna-s from afflicting the chIna-s. After the Tang revived their fortunes in 760 CE, amoghavajra performed a complex tAntrika ritual in which he crowned Su-zong as the chakravartin sArvabhauma. Shortly thereafter, he was joined by a brAhmaNa from Kashmir named praj~nAchakra, whom he initiated into a secret ritual of the chatur-vinAyaka-maNDala. In 765 CE he is supposed to have performed a long abhichAra rite on behalf of Su-zong right using the ma~njushrI kumArabhUta mantra to kill the Uighur Kha’khan. Thus, amoghavajra became a highly regarded tAntrika and was declared minister of the realm of the chIna-s, and was declared praj~nAkosha or the treasury of knowledge by the chIna emperor. Both amoghavajra and his successor praj~nAchakra were rAja-guru-s for Su-zong and his successor Dai-zong (on whose behalf amoghavajra had performed apotropaic rites when he was a general during the rokShana rebellion).

One of the secret vidyA-s that he promulgated were a set of rituals to gaNapati and his shakti whose originals appear to have been lost in India. But they are of greatest significance in understanding the gANapatya ritual; hence we describe them here. An account of the chIna Hanguang mentions that he received dIkSha in the secret sAdhana of gaNapati and his shakti from amoghavajra in 747 CE. He mentions that the prayoga was so secret that neither the mantra-s nor the maNDala and rites were recorded. The says the rites covered puShTika, shAntika, vashIkaraNa, abhichArika, AkarShaNa, and Ayuvardhana, i.e. a particular ShaTkarman encompassing both apotropaic, lifespan increasing and attacking rituals. He only briefly elaborates on the root bIja of vinAyaka being gaH (a nAstika form of the original gaM from the Astika tradition). He then tries to provide a bauddha overlay to explain the nature of vinAyaka – he claims that both vinAyaka and avalokiteshvara emerged as emanations from the dharmakAya (the pervasive body) of the cosmic buddha vairochana (the deity in vairochanAbhisaMbodhi tantra). Then avalokiteshvara transformed into a female and became the shakti of vinAyaka to pacify him. Hence, they are worshiped as a couple. Jing-se in his vidhi provides a few further details of the transmission of amoghavajra: He says that the vinAyaka-s might be worshiped as: 1) the vinAyaka yAmala – where vinAyaka is conjoined with his shakti. In this depiction his shakti is clearly depicted in a proboscicephalic form. It is clear from the navArNa mUlamantra of the original gANapatya tradition promulgated by the great AchArya herambhasuta in India (the element “hastipishAchi likhe”) that this is what was originally intended, although in the later period in India an entirely anthropomorphic shakti became the norm.
2) the ShaDbhuja vinAyaka – this form is depicted above from the original drawing of vajrabodhi or a copy there of. Tradition holds that vajrabodhi was a skillful iconographic artist.
3&4) are chaturbhuja vinAyaka-s.
5) The 4 seizing vinAyaka-s as ordained by the parishiShTha of the atharvaveda and the mAnava gR^ihya sUtra of the maitrAyaNIya tradition. This was already taken up by the nAstika-s and incorporated into the subAhu-paripR^ichCha, a text from the kriyA tantra layer.

It is regarding this last version of the 4 vinAyaka-s that praj~nAchakra the student of amoghavajra records a remarkable ritual.This ritual is termed the ritual of the magical plates for the deva Amoda sUrya (vinAyaka). He first makes the circular heaven plate about 3-4 a~Ngula-s in diameter and then the square earth plate with its side 7 a~Ngula-s from a white fragrant wood on an auspicious day. He avoids seeing evil-doers when he is preparing and painting this yantra. He fixes two handles to the heaven plate and connects the two plates with an axial pin. On the heaven plate facing east he writes the bIja AM in a leaf and visualizes a red Amoda-vinAyaka on a jade seat with a red body and wrathful face. He is surrounded by many troops and holds a vaiDUrya stone and a spike. To the south in a leaf he writes the kUTa jI and visualizes Amoda kAma vinAyaka holding a modaka and a radish, seated on a ruby throne. He is surrounded by 18 crore hordes yelling like jackals. To the west in a leaf he inscribes hrIH and conceives Amoda soma vinAyaka with 104 thousand crore troops. He is seated on a tiger skin seat and is known as ekadanta. On the northern side in a leaf the kUTa mA is inscribed and vAgIshvara gaNesha is conceived seated on a and of the blue green color with his hands showing the asi-mudra seated on a black stone throne with koTi-ayuta gaNa-s around him. In the center of this plate he may place an image of rudra. On the earth plate in the directions the following deities are inscribed indra (E); agni (SE); yama (S); nirR^itI (SW); varuNa (W); vAyu (NW); vaishravaNa (N); rudra (NE). These are surrounded by the 28 nakShatra-s and 36 animals. He then displays the special vinAyaka mudra to call the for vinAyaka-s. Then he invites the 4 seizing vinAyaka-s with the mantra “OM vakratuNDAdipatye svAhA ||”. Then he deploys a certain vakratuNDa mAlA mantra and displays a the vishva mudra. Then he shows the tejorAshI mudra and invokes the deva-s in the earth plate and utters the incantation (“OM shatrupramardine svAhA ||”). He then shows the kuNDa-mudra and invokes the nakShatra-s and the 36 animals with a mantra that we are unable to decipher. In the chIna transliteration it goes: “OM chi-ri-an-gi-ru-ni-ye svAhA ||”. He then shows the vajra mudra and invokes the multitude of gaNa-s of vinAyaka with a mAlA mantra. Then he shows the bhakti mudra.

He performs a digbandha by tying a boundary thread all around the ritual area and uttering the mantra: “OM ki ye ye ye huM ||”. To deploy the yantra he rotates the vinAyaka on the heaven plate to coincide with a deva on the earth plate. Then he casts and incantation for that particular prayoga. This mantra is not entirely decipherable and ends in huM huM kili kili hum phaT svAhA ||. It is accompanied by a display of the a~Nkusha and khaDga mudra.
-If he seeks to rise in stature then he may unites the sUrya vinAyaka with indra.
-If he seeks to perform an abhichAra to cause fever to a shatru then he may unite the sUrya vinAyaka with agni.
-If he seeks to get wealth then he may unite the soma vinAyaka with vaishravaNa.
-If he wants to induce a person to love him he unites the soma vinAyaka with vaishravaNa and invokes the nakShatra-s thereafter
-If he seeks to win a war then he unites the sUrya vinAyaka with rudra and invokes the hordes of rudra.
-If one wants good crops he unites vAgIshvara vinAyaka with indra.
-If he wants to remove bad dreams he unites sUrya vinAyaka with yama.
Thus, there are numerous prayoga-s for different purposes. It is said that it was transmitted from India to China. The mantra manual ends with an equation of the gaNapati-s on the heaven plate with the 4 seizing vinAyaka-s.
This text was also subsequently transmitted to Japan which had vigorous gANapatya tradition.

The recovery of this ritual from chIna sources is important because it belongs to the class of texts associated with the transition from the seizing vinAyaka-s to the classical vinAyaka-s. It is of interest to note that the text describes the 4 vinAyaka-s of being of the same basic substance. This is reminiscent of the the yAj~navAlkya ritual stating that the 4 or 6 seizing vinAyaka-s are essential manifestation of a single vinAyaka, umAsuta.

The younger generation of politicians, he said, lacks such a deep vision as that of the chAchA and consequently are not paying attention to education and science. Instead, inspired by the Hindutva BJP government they have engaged in regressive practices. Sometime later I met a local BJP politician from the mahArATTa country (disclaimer: I neither belong to nor endorse the BJP, the Kangress or any other Indian political party). The politician was there to attend a talk by a mlechCha intellectual and colleague because he was an autodidact in science. An acquaintance introduced him to me. He said that he was trying to meet as many scientists from videsh as possible as he wanted to inculcate a scientific spirit among the people of this constituency. In course of the conversation he went on to state that he wanted to clear the plebeians of the ignorance coming from their traditions, with regressive ideas like as caste and superstition. So I thought to myself after all the BJP politician and the chAchA of the nation’s visions do not seem to diverge much.

We were puzzled by these visions and narratives.The said mlechCha gentleman and me were being led out to a cab by a local who worked as a researcher at the institute that we were visiting, when a sudden noise of a street band caught our ears. The mlechCha unused to such noises and displays asked as to what it was. The local who was accompanying us promptly answered that it was the Hindu extremists who were celebrating the birthday of a 17th century criminal chief whom they proclaim as Hindu hero. Now who was this criminal chief? He was referring to none other than the founder of the mahArATTa nation, one of the the greatest Hindu warriors who ever was. We had to intervene and clarify that if shivAjI was a criminal chief, then by the same yardstick George Washington was as much a criminal chief. Then as a Parthian shot, even as we boarded the cab, we added that the dADhIvAlA Karl Marx was, however, the biggest of the criminals of all – we knew the mark had been hit. A later investigation showed us that the said individual had a history of opposing the Indian nuclear weapons program and supporting Naxalite-affiliated characters. This was not an isolated case; indeed equivalent institutes in other parts of bhAratavarSha house some of the worst public Hindu-haters.

One common trend we observed among all of them was the close relationship between their Marxist-Maoist streak and their lionization of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. They consistently presented a view that the concept of nation in the geographic bhAratavarSha was a new one that primarily owes its existence to the chAchA and the concept of secularism. Indeed, this found in the chAchA’s own words: “In a country like India, which has many faiths and religions, no real nationalism can be built up except on the basis of secularity.” They presented themselves as the true Indian nationalists and indicated that nationalism comprised in essence the eradication of religion; For after all as per the chAchA was no real nationalism except under “secularity”. Despite the protestations of the chAchA that he did not wish to erase religion, after all he had stated: “The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seems to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and the preservation of vested interests.” Further, they all believed that somehow the yojana-s of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty was central to the emergence of India as a “modern, technologically capable nation”. After all one of these individuals stated that without the chAchA’s vision we would have been a nation, which believed that it was all about bovine urine – everything from fueling airplanes to curing the incurable disease could be done with it (Politically aware Hindu-s certainly know of the professional filth-hurleress I am talking about here and can take a guess :-) ).

Recently, R Vaidyanathan had pointed out that the term Hindu growth rate which characterized the period of Nehruvian rule and its aftermath should be correctly named the Nehruvian growth rate. Somehow our great secular scientists ignore the elephant in the room: the period that they self-righteously term as the one characterized by Hindu growth rate was after all temporally overlapping with the glorious reign of silsilA-i-chAchAiya.Beyond the economic fantasy that these individuals live in, they are also believers in the fabrication that somehow the “secularity” of chAchA’s vision resulted in the emergence of Indic scientific achievement. This particularly puzzled us because we had felt that our scientific traditions were remarkably decadent especially in the post-freedom era. It is particularly ironic and telling that this bunch were not even able build on the start given to them by the greatest figures of their own parampara: Kosambi, who was himself a even more rabid Marxist than the chAchA ever was. The decadence in science was entirely consistent with the general decline in other areas of human endeavor, but some how it escaped them. Indeed, they live a world of their own making, like the chAchA himself, in which due to the “secularity” of chAchA’s visions: 1) India came into being as a nation in the first place; 2) India is a developing country or an emergent economy (reminding us of our Brazilian colleague pointing how they are characterized as a country of the future); 3)India is learning to do real science. 4) India is moving from primitiveness and superstition to an age of technology and rationality; ityAdi. R. Vaidyanathan had pointed out in an economic context that this narrative misses the basic fact that bhArata is simply attempting to return to its original economic place in the world (which was eroded by the realities of its struggle against the marUnmatta-s and the kIlita-pretamata). We see that this indeed is general across all elements of the narrative: In reality we were always a nation and that is the raison d’être for the war of independence from the English. We always had a scientific tradition and technology, both of which were damaged by the same forces. So if anything we can only continue these traditions after the hiatus they suffered. Instead the narrative based on the secular fabrication seeks to deny the very foundations of our civilization, hence; their nationalism is no nationalism and we do not need it all. It is for this reason why the masses need to be aroused about the need to reject this memetic complex, false as a nAstika doctrine, camouflaging as the real thing and rendering our ecosystem ripe for assault by our traditional enemies.

First, it should be noted that the brAhmaNa-s of all the four veda-s primarily deal with the agnIShomIya sacrifice in which animal victims are offered to the deva-s agni and soma within the more complex agniShToma ritual. They consider it the model for all other animal sacrifices. However, the shrautasUtra-s lay down a necessary sacrifice for the Arya ritualist, known as the nirUDhapashubandha, which is the model of all other animal sacrifices. Nevertheless, shA~NkhAyana of the RV tradition holds that the agnIShomIya is the model. Traditionally, unlike the agnIShomIya, the deities of the nirUDhapashubandha are indra and agni. Though later when prajApati and the solar (sUrya) worship started encroaching into the old shrauta system, this sacrifice was optionally dedicated to either of those two deities by certain teachers. While it would appear that the nirUDhapashubandha has been secondarily derived from the earlier agnIShomIya, we are of the contrary opinion that it was probably always present. We suspect that the brAhmaNa-s omit it for reasons of economy of learning associated with oral traditions. In support of this we would point out the specific calls of the adhvaryu such as: “indrAgnibhyAM chAgasya vapAyA medaso .avadIyamAnasyA .anubrUhi |” and “indrAgnibhyAM chAgasya vapAm medaH prasthitaM preShya |” In response to which in our version of the taittirIya tradition the maitravaruNa recites the RV mantra: “A bharataM shikShaM vajrabAhU…” and then the hotar recites the mantra: “upo ha yad vidathaM vAjino gUr…”. Similarly in the maitrAyaNIya tradition the maitrAvaruNa recites the RV mantra: “ubhA vAM indrAgnI AhuvadhyA…” and the hotar recites pra charShaNibhyaH pR^itanAhaveShu…” This suggests that there were probably old mantra-s to indrAgnI that were specifically used in the pashubandha context (distinct from the mantra-s of the agnIShomIya pashu), though others might have been similarly for the darshapUrNamAsa.

The ritual was done once an year on the new moon or full moon day in the rainy season or once in 6 months on the winter or summer solstice. The ritualist should collect the following: 1) pine tree firewood; 2) paridhi-s of kArshmarya wood (Gmelina); 3) guggulu resin; 4) sugandhitejana perfume; 5) a wad of white wool; 6) two threads respectively with two and three strands: 7) two vapAshrapaNI forks with one and two prongs respectively for offering the omentum; 8) a spike for impaling the heart of the animal during the offering; 9) a daNDa for the maitravaruNa reaching to the height of his mouth made of the udumbara fig tree wood; 10) a twig of the plakSha fig tree; the wooden plank known as the iDasUna; barley flour to make the barley water in prokShaNI vessel; 11) barley flour for the offering; 12) curds; 13) gold leaves; all this in addition to the usual samidh-s, ghee, and barhiSh. As per the tradition of the maitrAyaNIya-s the prastara bundle should be made of ashvavAla reeds instead of the usual darbha bundle.

Having performed the saMkalpa of the sacrifice the yajamAna should elect 6 R^itvik-s: the hotar, the adhvaryu, the brahmA, the AgnIdhra (assistant of brahmA), the pratiprasthAtar (assistance of adhvaryu) and the maitravaruNa (assistant of hotar). Then proceeding to the AhavanIya fire, the adhvaryu recites the ShaDDhotR^i mantra and makes an offering of ghee with a svAhA. If it is the first time the yajamAna is doing the sacrifice then the adhvaryu necessarily sets up 11 kapAla-s in the AhavanIya and offers a cake to agni and viShNu (or he offers ghee) with the agnAviShNU mantra. He may do this rite every time he does a pashubandha. Then he offers a ladle full of ghee to viShNu into the AhavanIya using the mantra: “uru viShNo vikramasvo .uru …” This is the yUpAhuti. Then the yajamAna, the brahmA, the adhvaryu along with a woodcutter go to the forest and pass by a few suitable trees and finally pick one to chop for the yUpa (sacrificial post). Depending on the yajamAna’s desire palAsha, khadira or bilva woods might be used for the yUpa. After the tree has been chopped down, making it fall east or northwards, the adhvaryu places the gold leaf on the stump and strews barhiSh around it and makes an oblation of ghee to the vanaspati with “vanaspate shatavalsho…” By default a yupa of 3-4 aratnis in length is prepared and it is shaped to have the cross-section of a regular octagon (though in some traditions if this is not possible, a square is allowed). The stock to be buried into the ground is however kept circular in cross-section. The top is fashioned to hold the wooden cap, the chAShala made from the remaining wood. Also made from the remaining wood is a wedge called the svaru.

In the sacrificial arena the adhvaryu strews barhiSh and takes away the bunch of darbha grass known as the stambayajus to the utkara dumping ground reciting the abhichAra formula to indra, to cut down the enemies. He then lays out of a trapezium altar with a west-facing base of 10 pada-s, east-facing top of 8 pada-s and height of 12 pada-s, having area as the holy number of 108 square pada-s, muttering the appropriate mantra of his tradition. He then excavates the vedi and and the AgnIdhra casts the earth away three times. This is the main vedi. Then the adhvaryu accompanied by the yajamAna marks the chAtvAla 2-3 pada-s to the north of the top of the vedi using his peg compass. He then uses the sphya to mark the chAtvAla muttering the appropriate mantra-s of his tradition and deeply excavates the chAtvAla pit (using the mantra devasya tvA savituH… to deva savitA) to obtain earth. The AgnIdhra takes out the earth in three scoops. The adhvaryu takes this earth close to the center of the top of the trapezium and wets the ground with the barley water from the prokShaNI chanting the indraghoSha mantra-s and marks the side of a new altar. With this mark as a guide a square, raised vedi with sides of 36 a~Ngula-s and height up to the yajamAna’s knees. This northern altar the is the uttaravedi, main fire altar for the animal sacrifice. At the center of the uttaravedi he prepares a square nave the size of 4 a~Ngula-s. Directly to the east of the uttaravedi he marks a cricle for erecting the yUpa such that its diameter lies on the top side of the trapezium altar. He gives a call for the agnIdhra to dig up the hole for the yUpa. He places the saMbhAra-s in the nave of the uttaravedi and pours ghee on the uttaravedi in different directions using the siGMhIr asi… mantra-s. During this he places the gold leaf in front of the mouth of the ladle to let ghee drip via it. He then lays the pine wood on three sides of the uttaravedI reciting the dR^iGMha mantra-s. He then places as saMbhAra-s the guggulu, the sugandhitejana perfume, and the wad of white wool on the uttaravedi uttering the agner bhasmA .asi… mantra and pours ghee over them. He then carries forth a samidh from the AhavanIya and places it on the uttaravedi with the mantra yaj~na pratitiShTha sumatau… As he is carrying forth the samidh the hotar recites hiM bhUrbhuvas-svarO3M and recites the 8 mantra-s beginning with pra devaM devyA dhiyA… reciting mantra 1 and 8 three times, all ending in OM. He then makes the fire flare up and offers the adhvara oblations with the mantra-s: agnir yaj~nAnAM…, vayur yaj~nAnAM…, sUryo yaj~nAnAM…, yaj~no yaj~nAnAM…. Then the yajamAna steps forward and offers three oblations to agni, vAyu and the Aditya-s agnir annAdo…; vAyuH prANadAH… and adityo bhUridA… mantra-s. He then prepares the ladles by filling them with ghee for the oblations and places them on the vedi.

Then moving westwards the adhvaryu asks for the prokShaNI-pAtra filled with barley water, a handful of barhiSh, a vessel of ghee with a darvI ladle, the svaru, the rope, the daNDa for the maitrAvaruNa, the gold leaf and a pot of water. Having placed these down, the adhvaryu washes the yUpa with water either without a mantra or reciting “yat te shikvaH …” It is then brought between the chAtvAla and the utkara dumping area and is fitted with the chAShala cap. Standing to the north of the AhavanIya the adhvaryu then sprinkles it with barley water deploying the mantra-s pR^ithivyai tvA, antarikShAya tvA, dive tvA from bottom to the top. Then the adhvaryu pours water into the post hole with “shundhatAM lokaH…” and casts barley into it with “yavo .asi…” Then he places darbha on top of the hole with pitR^inAGM sadanam asi and offers ghee dripping over the gold leaf with pitR^ibhya svadhA and throws the splinters of wood from the making of the yUpa into the whole with “svAvesho .asy agregA…” Then the yajamAna standing together with his patnI take out the chaShAla and smears the top of the yUpa and the interior of the chaShAla with ghee reciting devas “tvA savitA madhvA .anaktu”. He fits it back on to the yUpa uttering supippalAbhyas tvau .aShadhIbhyaH. The adhvaryu then gives a call to the hotar to recite the mantra-s of the smearing of the post. The hotar throws away a grass blade from the vedi and sitting to the west of the uttaravedi begins reciting the 7 mantra-s beginning with “a~njanti tvAm adhvare…”. As this is going on the adhvaryu pours ghee on the yUpa from top to bottom. After the hotar has recited the first verse from the 7 two and half times, he stops. Then the adhvaryu gives the call to recite the verses for erecting the yUpa. The hotar completes the remaining half of the 3rd repetition of the first verse and then continues till the first half of verse 6 and stops. In the mean time the adhvaryu erects the yUpa while reciting “ud divaGM stabhAnA .antarikShaM…” He then screws the yUpa into the hole reciting “te te dhAmAny…” and “viShNoH karmANi…”; with that the post is identified with viShNu. The yajamAna standing with his patnI recites “tad viShNoH paramam…” gazing at the chaShAla. Then the adhvaryu fills in the hole with mud using “brahmavaniM tvA…” and then hammers it down with the maitrAvaruNa’s daNDa uttering brahma “dR^iGMha kShatraM dR^iGMha…” Then he begins winding he rope around the yUpa he gives a call to the hotar to reciting the winding verses. The hotar completes the second half of verse 6 and continues with a triplication of verse 7. As the adhvaryu winds the rope to the height of the yajamAna’s navel he recites 3 times the mantra “parivIr asi pari tvA…” Then tying up the rope, to the north of the face that is directed towards the AhavanIya he inserts the svaru into the coils reciting the mantra: “antarikShasya tvA sAnAv ava gUhAmi”.

The adhvaryu then has the sacrificial ram (goat) to be bathed and leads it from the direction of the chAtvAla to the yUpa and makes it stand facing the west. Then he picks two darbha blades and the plakSha fig twig, utters iShe tvA and dedicates the animal to indra and agni using the mantra: “upavIr asy upo devAn daivIr viShaH”; “imam pashum pashupate te adya…” and indrAgnibhyAM tvA juShTam upAkaromi…” Then the places the darbha blades and the plakSha twig away in a known spot. Then he arranges the ritual fire drill with the specified mantra-s and asks the yajamAna to recite the three prajAti mantra-s beginning with “gAyatraM chando .anu…” and asks the hotar to recite the agni-manthana mantra-s. The hotar begins chanting hiM bhUrbhuvassvarO3M and three times “abhi tvA deva savitar…” When the fire is generate the adhvaryu gives a call to the hotar again, and he recites “uta bruvantu jantavaH…”. Then the adhvaryu places the fire on the AhavanIya and recites “bhavataM naH sumanasau…” and gives a call to the hotar before that. The hotar responds by reciting the 6 mantra beginning with “pra devam devavItaye…” triplicating the last mantra. The adhvaryu then offers ghee in the fire with “agnAv agnish charati…” Then he lassos the ram with a lasso with a two-stranded rope while reciting R^itasya tvA… and ties it to the rope wound round the yUpa with the mantra “dharSha mAnuShAN”. Uttering “adbhyas tvau…” he sprinkles the animal with water. Then he gives it its last drink with “apAm perur asi” and sprinkles its rear “svAttaM chit sad evaGM…” Then taking a samidh the adhvaryu gives a call to the hotar to recite the 17-fold sAmidhenI (additional varuNa mantra inserted for vasiShTha-s and kShatriya-s). As he does so the adhvaryu places one samidh per sAmidhenI and keeps one final samidh aside. He then fans the fire into a blaze and pours an AghAra libation of ghee with the darvI. Then he pours a second AghAra with the sruva and sruch. The hotar then makes the offerings of ghee to sarasvatI in the AhavanIya with the 6 mantra-s ending in svAhA with a darvI. The adhvaryu then anoints the animal with ghee using the anointing mantra-s. Then the pravara rite is performed as per the yajamAna’s clan. Then the adhvaryu gives the O shravAya call. The AgnIdhra returns “astu shrauShaT”. Then then calls the maitrAvaruNa and gives him his daNDa with the appropriate mantra-s.

Here concludes the first part of the account for now… We might resume later when we get a chance.

S asked us of our ontology for dharma. We course had to cite kaNAda: dharma-visheSha-prasUtAd dravya-guNa-karma-sAmAnya-visheSha-samavAyAnAM padArthAnAM sAdharmya-vaidharmAbhyAM tattvaj~nAnAn niHshreyasaM ||

S pointed to a translation of this by Matilal: “The ‘supreme good’ (i.e. niHshreyasa) is achieved through the knowledge of reality resulting from a special merit arrived at through the inductive method of agreement and difference of properties of the six categories, namely, substance, quality, action, generality, particularity and inherence.”

We would say that this is a pretty good approximation of what kaNAda conveys in his sUtra; of course kaNAda had earlier pointed out that: “dharma is that which brings about upliftment in life (abhyudaya) and the supreme good (niHshreyasa).” This might be contrasted with the view of the mImAmsa sUtra-s, which define dharma as that which is denoted as the object or the supreme good by vaidika injunctions. Thus, in the vaisheShika the arrow runs from the dharma to the veda – the veda is an authority because the saMhitA-s teach dharma rather than the other way around. This point apart, after some explanation, it became clear that for all of us in the room the sUtra, which we cited in full above is what largely jibes with our thinking.
S: “So the vaisheShika you advocate is its direction somewhat different from the course it took over the ages. Probably in large part influenced by the attacks of the bauddha-s, advaitin-s and the philosophical facets of sAMkhya. You would advocate a more science-centric vaisheShika.”

We: “Yes. The path of vaisheShika that we take is a continuation of the tradition that expresses itself in the medical saMhitA of charaka. A practical application of the theories of vaisheShika to understand nature. It also incorporates the scientific side of sAMkhya, which does not entirely conflict with vaisheShika, i.e. the portions that are downstream of sAMkhyan paramANu-vAda. At the end of the day we have always held out for navya-darshana that might incorporate certain elements of mImAMsa, such as nirIshvara-vAda, along with vaisheShika. In this particular regard the original vaisheShika of kaNAda was very close – it was indeed nirIshvara. As per the yukti dIpikA of the sAMkhyavAdin-s the very idea of Ishvara came into the vaisheShika realm due the the shaiva-s – since, from an early period vaisheShika was closely associated with the pAshupata-s and their successors the saiddhAntika-s.”

CP: “So would you see the vaisheShika of bhaTTa jayanta as having already taken this turn, perhaps a negative one. Certainly, it seems so at least for udayana. But upon your goading I came to study the bhaTTa more closely and agree that he was certainly more important to Hindu thought than the status usually accorded to AdishaMkara in this regard. But looking at his discussion of punarjanmavAda the bhaTTa would seem as bad or worse – in a sense he is making a mess of his otherwise splendid performance. But may be we can call him as one who clearly defined Hindudom”

We: “bhaTTa jayanta has his issues, especially his need reconcile Ishvara and punarjanma into the system. However, I must confess my sympathies for the bhaTTa in particular because he was like us an atharvaNa-shAkhAdhyAyin and defends the place of the AV with some force. We agree that he is one of the clearest in the self-definition of the followers of dharma, defending the the overall place of the tantra-s beside the original shruti. His work also illustrates how the Astika-s really viewed the tAthagata-s – a sharp contrast to the spite seen in say tAranAtha’s history. We may sympathetically interpret his Ishvara-vAda as just a terminology for the prAdhAna-kAraNa for the collisions between the particles to initiate the emergence of the universe. We also tend to look for the many positives in jayanta though his vaisheShika was already in the path of “philosophy” heavy turn it had taken. For example, we see his position against the anAdi apauruSheyatva of the shruti as a corrective to mImAmsa. He states that the value of the veda as shruti is primarily due to it being spoken by reliable people, the inspired Arya seers, and not due its eternality. He clarifies that there are texts like the medical saMhitA-s whose validity rests on experimental results rather than authority. While his justification of the reliability of the R^iShi-s using inspiration of prajApati appears facile from our viewpoint, it is not fatal and can be reinterpretted. It is not that he is entirely bereft of the science of vaisheShika: after all in explain sound he stresses the point that kaNAda’s theories present a superior understanding of the natural world to that of bhaTTa kumArila. He also presents advances to the theory of sound over that of the mImAmsaka-s by explaining transmission sound waves through media by initiation of vibrations. Again, ironically in the section leading to punarjanma and IshvaravAda he gives an account of the molecular constitution of a living body, like that of humans, and clarifies that it is no different in the basis of construction from other material dravya-s.

RC: Are the similarities between mythologies due to monophyly, convergence, lateral transfer or simply the result of spurious pattern matching on our part?
For a hilarious extreme case let us consider the motifs we in the room tended to see in the English neo-mythology Harry Potter and go back to that question:
-The battle between the snake-guild or snakes (Slytherins) and the sword-wielding wizards (Gryffindor): the battle between the nAga-s and the sword-wielding vidyAdhara-s in the bR^ihatkatha tradition, or the multi-generational battle between the nAga-s and the kuru-s in the frame story of the bhArata.
-Six Weasley brothers of which one dies leaving 5 behind. 6 “karNAdi” brothers of which five survive.
-Of the six Weasleys one is on the side of the enemies: karNa of the 6 karNAdi brothers is on the enemy side.
-Two Weasley brothers are twins and specialist wonder workers: Twin mAdreya-s sons of wonder-working ashvins (purudaMsasa)
-One of the twins dies: One of the Dioscuri, Castor is mortal while Polydeuces is immortal.
-Ginny: Transfunctional goddess.
-Potter’s Slytherin connection : the nAga as a kauravya-s; iravAn and the supremely powerful babruvAhana half nAga/half kauravya.
-Albus Dumbledore: bhIShma pitAmaha; nAginI: the killer of parIkShit; Hagrid: ghaTotkacha; Inferni: vetAla-s; horcrux and mahirAvaNa-s “horcrux”; the sword of Gryffindor: the vidyAdhara’s magical sword and many more that we are now forgetting.

CP: Surely this comparative mythology stuff sounds like a whole lot of nonsense ?

Some of us: Yet, why does the motif of the war of the “wizards and snakes” and so many scattered motifs reappear in an English neo-epic.

CA: There is no statistical test to support this gibberish you all are getting into!

We: O CA of pretty smiles taking that statistical line has cause such delusion to so many in my science. You know what I am talking about.There are certain problems where statistics can give a positive answer, but an insignificant result does not always mean lack of relationship.

R: Talking of all this what happened to your story “mantranAyaka” of which you had narrated some parts ?

We: Well, when we read the above-named English neomythology at our mother’s suggestion, we realized that stories should be done by real writers, even though there is apparently an audience for such stories and let it pass. At the end of the day even we were inspired the tales of somadeva, rAjA bhojadeva and padmagupta.

CP and S: You mentioned that bhoja-deva’s work had tilted your opinion towards the existence of actual mechanical devices in place of wizardry. What was the story from which you and R derived the airplane for the script of that play?

We: We were not being too original we were merely imitating the tales of somadeva, daNDin and (specifically in our case) their Tamil counter part.

CP: The airplanes often come in the context of the dohada-s of women; I wonder if in this day and age when there are real airplanes women have dohada-s of flying.

…
The story of the aeronauts of kA~nchIpuraM (vide somadeva, kShemendra and the Tamil author whose name is lost):
naravAhanadatta had a dream one night of an extraordinarily beautiful girl named karpUrikA in the city of karpUrasaMbhava. He with his friend gomukha set out to meet her. On the way the reached a village which was known as hemapura. After sometime they realized that hemapura was entirely a village of speechless robots. The men and women who were around in the marketplace were all robots moving in a clockwork manner controlled by an unseen being. Then they went to the central palace of hemapura, where they saw a single conscious being, who was served like a king by his robotic servants. In response to naravAhanadatta’s inquiries he said his name was rAjyadhara and narrated the following story: He lived in the city of kA~nchipuraM in the drAviDa country, which was ruled by the king bAhubala, along with his brother prANadhara. They had mastered the lore of making robots and machines promulgated by the dAnava maya and his daughter, the asurI somaprabhA. Of the brothers, prANadhara was a ladies man and squandered both his and his brothers wealth on several public women. Having become bankrupt, he made a yantra, which by means of a wire would introduce two robotic geese into the treasury and steal jewels with their beaks. The king soon came to know of this and set up guards to catch the thieves. Seeing the robotic geese entering the treasury they cut the wire by which it was operated. Immediately, prANadhara felt the tension sag in his controlling pin and knew that they would be caught as thieves. So he told rAjyadhara that they should flee kA~nchI using the vimAna he had made. But by the time prANadhara loaded his family into his airplane, there was no space for rAjyadhara. Nevertheless, prANadhara took off and his plane carried him 800 yojana-s away to a city in northern India. But rAjyadhara had made his own vAta-yantra-vimAna, which on its first flight took him 200 yojana-s and in a second flight took him another 200 yojana-s placing him in the middle of some abandoned village. There he made several robots and populated the village making it the hemapura, where naravAhanadatta had reached in his quest for karpUrikA. After resting for a day at hemapura, naravAhanadatta wanted to move ahead, when rAjyadhara offered him his vimAna to fly him over the coast of west India to karpUrasaMbhava. On landing there, he and gomukha eventually located karpUrikA the daughter of the ruler of karpUrasaMbhava and naravAhanadatta married her. When naravAhanadatta wanted to return he found that his aircraft was too small. His father-in-law offered to fly him back by means of the flying saucer (yantra chakra) of his new engineer. Soon naravAhanadatta realized that this was none other than prANadhara and took of on his large craft. They first landed in hemapura where prANadhara gifted his brother some real female companions and then they headed back to kaushAMbhI. There naravAhanadatta added karpUrikA to his harem to join ratnaprabhA and madanama~nchukA. Then prANadhara flew back to the king of karpUrasaMbhava to inform him that his daughter had safely reached. Eventually, he went to the kaushAMbhI and settled under the patronage of naravAhanadatta. There prANadhara is supposed to have made several planes for him and his wives. Thus, naravAhanadatta is supposed to enjoyed his aerial journeys as though in preparation for this ascent to the position of the lord of the wizards, which forms the next part of his adventures.

M: So now I can see where you guys got the zombie analogy long before Chalmers.

Thus we returned to the deep speculations on the teachings of the dUtI.

Geometric constructions have a special effect on us because they depict visually the Platonic abstractions that often underlie the laws of nature. So in a sense a construction is a mapping of natural laws on the canvas of Platonic space. So to certain minds they are inherent synesthetic and allow lesser minds, such as ours, to grapple with enormously complex formulations when expressed by other modes. We are of the opinion that the earliest expression of this idea goes back to the tradition of the yajurveda in which the lakShaNa-s of chiti-s and vedi-s are layed out. We have our favorites among constructions, which have a supremely elevating effect: e.g. the trisection of the angle using the conchoid of Nicomedes; the construction of an ellipse by folding a circle through a point; the approximations for squaring of a circle. Of these the squaring of the circle is central to the construction of an AhavanIya and gArhapatya of equal area and a multiple approximations are suggested by different yajurvedic traditions. Similar constructions to these yajurvedic attempts are seen in the Rhind papyrus and the work of Anaxagoras. Several millennia later the 26 year old Ramanujan supplied one of the best approximations for the squaring of the circle – the one shown above. With this he gets a fraction for approximating pi as 355/113 – one which would have made his yajurvedic ancestor proud.

One of the emergent laws of nature concerning rivers states that the length of course of the river to the distance from its mouth to source tends to approach pi. This approach comes closer to pi if the substrate through which the river flows is uniform in composition and topography. So it might be seen in a sense as a natural law whose Platonic representation might be shown as the squaring of a circle. At another level the area of the square is a visualization of pi (since it is a unit circle and as alluded to in the sulba sUtra-s we apprehend area more easily as squares). Now, this quantity pi is ever present in natural laws acting at various levels from deep to shallow: The Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the inverse square law of force between electrical charges, the Kepler’s third law or the normal distribution in statistics. In this regard we might conclude by citing Eugene Wigner:
“There is a story about two friends, who were classmates in high school, talking about their jobs. One of them became a statistician and was working on population trends. He showed a reprint to his former classmate. The reprint started, as usual, with the Gaussian distribution and the statistician explained to his former classmate the meaning of the symbols for the actual population, for the average population, and so on. His classmate was a bit incredulous and was not quite sure whether the statistician was pulling his leg. “How can you know that?” was his query. “And what is this symbol here?” “Oh,” said the statistician, “this is pi.” “What is that?” “The ratio of the circumference of the circle to its diameter.” “Well, now you are pushing your joke too far,” said the classmate, “surely the population has nothing to do with the circumference of the circle.” Naturally, we are inclined to smile about the simplicity of the classmate’s approach. Nevertheless, when I heard this story, I had to admit to an eerie feeling because, surely, the reaction of the classmate betrayed only plain common sense.”

But to us the vision of geometric construction, much more than algebra, brings home the fundamental symmetry in the action of the natural laws such as the above by linking it to the primary constant of the circle, which is perfectly symmetric. So at least we would not be so dismayed by the appearance of pi. Nevertheless, we should remark that when we first studied the normal distribution and quantum mechanics many years ago in our youth the appearance of pi respectively in the bell curve and the uncertainty principle sparked a reaction similar to that of the character in Wigner’s tale, but in our case it was followed by what seemed to us a profound philosophical realization.

One of the first evolutionary hypothesis presented for the emergence of IRS has been the feast-famine or thriftiness hypothesis. This basic premise of this was that in premodern societies (at some point, perhaps going all the way back to the paleolithic phase) humans faced alternative periods of abundance and scarcity of food, and lead a physically active life due to the need to forage actively for subsistence. In this kind of environment individuals who were able to store fat were at advantage in tiding periods of “famine”. Hence, there was a selective advantage to individuals who rapidly took up nutrients during a “feast” phase, converted it to fat and hoarded it in the adipose tissue. This advantage in the feast-famine environment turned into disease in the modern environment with a constant supply of food rich in fat, coupled with a sedentary lifestyle that did not impose any requirement to utilize the stored fats. This hypothesis would imply that certain genetic variants which predisposed individuals to IRS were positively selected in the feast-famine period. As our acquaintance from college days had pointed out, in practice there are several problems with this hypothesis – firstly, there is no correlation between geographical regions where food in limiting and IRS. Secondly, there is no evidence that the arrow of causality proceeds from IRS to obesity rather than the other way around. Importantly, in tropical India where IRS is most prevalent, the food supply was relatively constant through the year, unlike in populations such as the Eskimoes, Mongols and Northern Europeans who have relatively lower incidence of IRS despite much greater constraints in terms of circum-annual food availability.

A related hypothesis has been based on the observation that there is significant association between low birth weight and IRS risk worldwide across several ethnic groups. This hypothesis holds that scarcity of nutrients during intrauterine development (which leads to low birth weight) sends a predictive signal for lack future absence of nutrients and tips the physiology in the direction of hoarding fat. In premodern situations where this predictive signal was indeed likely to be true this physiological shift resulting in fat hoarding is likely to have favored survival. However, today it results in disease as the intrauterine lack of nutrients is unlikely to mean absence of nutrients in the future. While, this hypothesis appears reasonably consistent at face value, it presents an internal contradiction when extended to the modern situation – how is it that correlation between intrauterine nutrient deprivation is not correlated with later starvation only in the modern world? The only way out is to postulate that in the modern scenario the low birth weight individuals are more likely to be provided with greater amounts of nutrients in modern settings than in premodern settings, where low birth weight was an honest predictor of scarcity.

A third set of hypotheses work from the view point of obesity. They start from the observation that monogenic defects resulting in obesity predominantly affect hypothalamic pathways resulting in impaired regulation of satiety and food intake. Thus, hunger, satiety and food intake, rather than metabolic rate or nutrient partitioning is key to the emergence of IRS. Accordingly, it is posited that rather than being a primarily metabolic disease IRS is a metabolic manifestation of a neuro-behavioural disease. It is in this regard that our acquaintance from college presented the so called soldier vs diplomat hypothesis: He posited that insulin resistance is a socio-ecological adaptation that is related to two phenotypic transitions, namely 1) a transition from a r-selected to a K-selected strategy and 2) a transition from a more muscle-dependent to a more brain-dependent lifestyle (soldier to diplomat transition). Like the other hypotheses he proposed that this adaptation developed in premodern societies but became pathological in modern societies with greater availability of calorie rich food. He supported the r to K transition by suggesting that insulin resistance in the mother results in decreased fertility but heavier neonates. He also interpreted the mutations in the insulin/IGF signaling pathway resulting in increased longevity as a possible move from a r to a K strategy. Finally, in support of the more brain-dependent strategy he suggested that the increased glucose levels due insulin resistance might supply more glucose for the brain to use. Even if this idea remains poorly supported, he points to the fact that insulin resistance is characterized by hyperinsulinemia and that insulin receptors are widely distributed in specific brain areas such as the olfactory bulb, pyriform cortex, amygdaloid nucleus, hippocampus, hypothalamic nucleus and cerebellar cortex. Thus, the increase in blood insulin might act via these brain receptors to positively affect spatial and verbal memory.

It is in the context of these hypotheses that the data from Metspalu et al become considerably interesting. First, let us consider Myostatin/GDF8 (MSTN) which might provide an explanation for a variety of factors, including perhaps why Indians need to be philosophical about their performance in athletic events such as the Olympics. MSTN is a member of the TGF-ß family of cystine knot cytokines. Its evolutionary history is a long one – being traceable to the basal animals such the cnidarians (NEMVEDRAFT_v1g196852; GI:156407906). It is preserved in most animal lineages studied to date and shows a strong muscle-specific expression pattern at least in vertebrates, arthropods and molluscs – probably this holds across all animals with muscles. It negatively regulates muscle development by signaling via the ActRIIB receptor. Its role in muscle development came to light first in studies in rodents where deletion of MSTN resulted in considerable increase in body size with muscles weighing 2-3 times more than the wild-type animals. Subsequently, it was seen that loss of function mutations in MSTN was behind the “doubled-muscled” phenotypes of European cattle bred for meat. Its equivalent role in humans was underscored by the dramatic case of a German boy who showed extraordinary muscle development at birth and by the age of 4.5 years was showing precocious strength and ability to lift large weights. Several members of his family were noted for their great physical strength and the boy’s maternal grandfather was known to lift heavy stones. Analysis of the boy’s myostatin gene revealed that he was homozygous for a mutation at splice donor site in intron 1, which resulted in a mispliced MSTN mRNA producing a truncated dysfunctional protein. Subsequently, the role of the myostatin mutation K153R has been shown to be associated with decreased jumping performance in young males. MSTN has also been shown to be under strong positive selection in humans, with certain coding region SNPs affecting highly conserved regions being present in greater than 14% frequency only in sub-Saharan Africans. One wonders if at least some of these SNPs might be related to selection for increased explosive muscular activity needed for sprinting and short distance speed (something which sub-Saharan Africans excel in). In addition to regulation of muscle development myostatin, also appears to favor increased adiposity and insulin resistance. MSTN knockouts show reduced fat accumulation and also decreased insulin resistance. Hence, when MSTN is knocked out in agouti lethal yellow and leptin knockout backgrounds there is a partial suppression of the pro-obesity and insulin resistance effects. Thus, MSTN is an intrinsic muscle-inhibiting, fat- and blood sugar-enhancing factor. The positive selection at this locus in the Indian sub-continent should be seen in the following light: Indian neonates weigh on average 700 g less than European neonates and difference arises primarily from a reduced muscle to fat mass ratio. The Indian neonates display relatively greater insulin resistance and this effect is enhanced, with the average age at which an Indian is diagnosed of IRS is significantly lower than in Europeans (~10 years earlier). The fastest Indian 100m runners are often slower than club level runners in Europe. Indians have rarely produced full pace (as opposed to medium pace) bowlers matching the speed of either European or African origin players. Even if they do they are much more prone to injury and slow recovery from it. Together these issues suggest that in India MSTN has been selected for being more rather than less active – consequently resulting in shortfalls in muscle development/repair and increased adiposity and insulin resistance.

Why would there be selection for poorer muscle development, IRS etc when the converse seems to enhance fitness in many ways. In a sense this is an extension to question as to why the MSTN pathway emerged in the first place? Though under laboratory conditions MSTN deletion has an apparently fitness-enhancing phenotype, MSTN appears to have been preserved throughout animal evolution and is strongly constrained in its conservation across vertebrates. This suggests that despite the deletion phenotypes, its loss or divergence is not much tolerated under natural conditions. Why might this be so? We suspect that it might be explained by considering muscles to be “parasitic”. protein hogs. So if their development is not under a negative regulatory pathway they compete with other organ systems for the availability of protein. If there is saturating protein availability in food, then this might not result any noticeable problem; however, when protein supplies are limiting there could be deleterious effects on other organs. This idea is compatible with the soldier-diplomat hypothesis because it favors brain development to proceed unaffected even under protein-limiting conditions. However, we suspect that this was not the original reason for the postulated selection for the strengthening of the MSTN effect in India. The invading Indo-Aryans are unlikely to have faced a protein limitation due to their focus on dairy farming. On the other hand the proto-Indians (the so called “ASI” of Reich et al) are likely to have faced protein deficits, especially among the peninsular tribal cultures. After all, even until recently the statistics suggested that more than half the non-urban Indians face a dietary deficit in protein availability. This, might have resulted in selection for an over-efficient MSTN signaling, which might have allowed completely functional organ development under low-protein conditions. Further, myostatin deficiency makes certain muscles susceptible to contraction-induced injury and have reduced force-generating capacity – this might be a major disadvantage in tribal life, where stamina in certain muscular operations might have been critical. This was possibly another reason for emphasizing the MSTN system in certain Indian settings. In this regard, there might certain specific stamina-related muscular activities, where even today the Indian MSTN alleles might provide an edge. Of course, it should be stressed that these are speculations that cannot be taken for granted unless further testing shows that the MSTN alleles selected for in India indeed acts in the above-suggested direction. Nevertheless, it is clear that the MSTN selection might have been very critical for life in ancient tribal India though disadvantageous today – better understanding of this might give us some key clues with respect to resource allocation to the muscles vs rest of the body. Here, one may also consider two paralogous genes emerging in the Metspalu et al survey – POPDC3 and BVES, which encode TM proteins with a C-terminal cyclic nucleotide binding domain. POPDC3 is expressed in both the striated muscle tissue and in certain brain regions. It is a a cyclic nucleotide-dependent regulatory protein, which might play a role in muscle development. Testing the interaction, if any, between variants at this locus with the MSTN variants might throw light on the functional implications of possible selection for altered muscle development among Indians. Another neglected aspect that might be of interest is the relatively high expression of MSTN in cranial and cervical ganglia – does it have an additional neural function that is under selection?

The next gene that was found to be under positive selection in the sub-continent was DOK5, which encodes a receptor tyrosine kinase substrate with PH and PTB domains. It has been shown to function downstream of the receptors for both insulin and the cystine knot nerve growth factor GDNF. It is strongly expressed in the amygdala, dorsal root ganglia and cranial ganglia and lies within a signaling cascade that promotes neurite outgrowth. Outside the brain it shows prominent expression in T lymphocytes in the blood. The GGC haplotype with SNPs rs6068916, rs6064099 and rs873079 in DOK5 was previously shown to be associated with obesity and type-2 diabetes in a northern Indian sample. On the other hand, another study showed that increased activation of neurons in the amygdala when exposed to hostile faces was correlated with the C haplotype SNP rs2023454 in DOK5. These observations are of considerable interest because DOK5 variants have the potential to connect three major components of the soldier-diplomat hypothesis: 1) Obesity/IRS; 2) the hostility perception and 3) regulation of the immune system via expression in T-cells – given that the hypothesis postulates that the immune system is directed from “outward” to “inward” focus during the transition from a soldier to a diplomat state. One rank speculation is that the positive selection in the sub-continent at the DOK5 locus might have facilitated or accompanied the emergence of agricultural civilization in northern India currently first attested at the Mehrgarh site. In this case it is seen as reducing hostility perception, while at the same time facilitating a more “diplomat” kind of metabolism in the context of the emergence of the agricultural civilization. If this speculation hold out to further tests, it might constitute a potential genetic base for the soldier-diplomat hypothesis of our acquaintance.

Metspalu et al also point to the key circadian regulator gene CLOCK as being under positive selection in India. Knockouts of the CLOCK and its paralogous partner BMAL1 result in diabetes mellitus and reduced glucose tolerance. Based on this the authors speculate that it might have some role in increased susceptibility for type-2 diabetes in the sub-continent. However, there are several issues with this speculation. The diabetes in the CLOCK knockouts results in a clear hypoinsulinemia from reduced insulin secretion and defective islets of Langerhans; however, the IRS in India is characterized by high blood insulin levels accompanied by loss of responsiveness to insulin in several glucose-utilizing tissues. CLOCK is also under positive selection across many human populations and is under comparable strong selection in Western Eurasia as India. So this is unlikely to be a India specific phenomenon and might have begun earlier. Given its pleiotropic effects on various other aspects of circadian physiology, it is not all clear as to whether variation in this gene was selected for in the context of pancreatic physiology or something else. Hence, we suspect this might not necessarily be a key player in Indian type-2 diabetes susceptibility.

GPHB5/OGH is another gene which emerges in the Metspalu et al survey for positive selection in the sub-continent; it is ignored by the authors, but might have a more important role. It encodes a cystine knot hormone paralogous to the beta subunits of thyrotropin, follitropin, lutropin and gonadotropin and signals via the thyrotropin receptor. It has been observed to be expressed in the pituitary, hypothalamus and probably the skin. Overexpression of GPHB5 has been shown to result in resistance to diet-induced obesity, and reduction in blood glucose, insulin, cholesterol, and triglycerides. Thus, the GPHB5 variants among Indians is a potential candidate for the connection between obesity and IRS, especially in response to extrinsic behavioral and immunological cues routed via the brain. In this context it is of interest to note that acute inflammation resulted in increased GPHB5 expression in the brain and pituitary and it appears to be responsible for altered thyroid hormone metabolism during illness (an example of it responding to extrinsic cues). Thus, GPHB5 could be another candidate for genetic basis of the soldier-diplomat transition.

.oOo.oOo.oOo.
Appendix 1: Since some people asked me about AIT/OIT, at the risk of repeating what we have said before on these pages let us go through the details again. In figure two of their paper the authors present an analysis with ADMIXTURE with 8 and 12 clusters (Figure 2). In the K8 analysis we have k5, which is shared by Indians, Iranians, many Indo-European speaking Europeans, Central Asians, West Asians, and Caucasians. It is found at similar levels in Northern and Southern brAhmaNa-s and northern kShatriya-s. It is absent in Africans, importantly the Sardinians (representatives of the Pre-Indoeuropean inhabitants of Europe (aka proto-Europeans), East Asians and Papuans. In India it is largely absent or low in the Austro-Asiatic Munda, eastern tribes like Khasis, Nihalis, Nagas and Garos and also in southern tribes like Paniyans, Pulliyars and Malayans. This corresponds in large part to the “ANI” component of Reich et al’s work; we may call it the Arya component. The other major component of interest among Indians is the k6@K8, which is found in majority of populations from the Indian sub-continent. This component is found at highest levels in Pulliyars, Paniyans, Malayans, Gonds and also the Munda tribesmen, in whom there is an additional east Asian admixture. This is in large part the “ASI” of Reich et al’s analysis; we may term it the niShAda component. This component declines both eastwards and westwards from the heart of India. Outside India it is only present at low levels in Iranians, Central Asians, Burmese and Cambodians. So in large part the Indians can be genetically reconstructed as differential admixtures of the k6@K8 and k5@K8 components – comparable to what was done by Reich et al.

Now given that k5@K8 is shared with Europeans, West Asians and Caucasians in principle both OIT and AIT are potential explanation. If OIT were the true explanation then we should see some proportion of k6@K8 being distributed to all the recipient populations of the OIT migration because all sub-continental populations share k6@K8. But this is not the case – only the populations in the immediate vicinity of India have k6@K8, consistent with Indian genetic material local spreading to the immediate periphery of the sub-continent. So if OIT happened it was confined to barely the immediate surroundings of the sub-continent, which is inconsistent with the spread of Indo-Aryan and Iranian, leave alone Indo-European. On the other hand k5@K8 is consistent with the spread of people from the general vicinity of the Caucasus to Europe, West Asia and the Indian sub-continent; several of the recipient populations also appear to share languages of the Indo-European family. This is basically AIT. It should be noted that k3@K8 and k4@K8 represent respectively early European and early West Asian populations that in Europe and West Asia mixed with the k5@K8 component. In India k5@K8 mainly mixed with the ancient Indian population represented by k6@K8. The authors use a simulation to claim that this admixture happened before 12,500 years. This result in our opinion is flawed because of certain early West Asian variants seeping into India and inflating the age of admixture. The k5@K8 signal in large part comes from the “ANI” component of Reich et al. Using that data one might conservatively estimate the age of admixture as being around 200 gens, which is consistent with an Indo-European influx into India bringing much of the ANI genetic signatures.

With respect to the linguistic landscape of India we might make the following comments based on the genetic data: The Austro-Asiatic Munda languages were not endogenous to ancient India. Instead, Austro-Asiatic speakers intruded from southeast Asia and penetrated deep into India, while mixing with local proto-India tribal populations. From this admixture emerged the Munda tribes who adopted the intrusive AA language, while retaining several words from the proto-India language. Given the dominance of the O2a Y-chromosome haplotype among the Munda, shared with southeast Asian AA speakers, this is another example of the father-tongue becoming mother tongue, whenever there is an male driven intrusion (e.g. Spanish or Portuguese decimating local languages in the colonial period). So there was no question of the Indus civilization being Munda or even “Para-Munda” for that matter. What we observe is that the common “inexplicable” vocabulary shared by IA, AA and Dravidian in the sub-continent is dominated by the kA, kI, ku class of words. Hence, these words belonged to the language X family proposed by Masica and not to Dr or AA. It is now becoming increasingly clear that this language X family was likely to have been a major language family of the proto-Indians, i.e. those who were the carriers of the original k6@K8 component. The footprints of the language X family indeed mirror the distribution of k6@K8 in cutting across the other linguistic families of the sub-continent though the family itself is extinct today. This leaves us with the question of Dravidian – was there a Dravidian invasion or did it emerge in situ? The uncertainty in the ultimate origin of Dravidian stems from how one treats the Brahui problem. If Brahui is considered a late secondary dispersal, then it is likely that Dravidian originated in peninsular India and spread upwards. Even if Brahui suggests an initial western origin, we suspect that there was a major episode of Dravidian expansion from peninsular India. On the whole we are currently tilted towards the hypothesis that both the language X and Dravidian families were representatives of the original linguistic diversification in the subcontinent that later expanded greatly to occupy large territories. But it appears that language X had a more north-western “center of gravity” relative to Dravidian, which was more south-eastern in its center of gravity.

Disclaimer: While we disagree with the authors’ conclusions on this matter we have nothing personal against them. We describe their attempts as amateurish because they reduce the Indo-European hypothesis to being a mere speculation of Max Mueller; to the contrary it is a rather robust hypothesis that has currently withstood all objective tests. It is also abundantly clear based on this hypothesis that it was intrusive into India rather than moving out of it. The only question is whether the ancient spread of the Indo-European languages to India was accompanied by a corresponding spread of genetic material. Unfortunately, the authors hardly present this issue clear.

Further reading
Shared and unique components of human population structure and genome-wide signals of positive selection in South Asia.
Metspalu M, Romero IG, Yunusbayev B, Chaubey G, Mallick CB, Hudjashov G, Nelis M, Mägi R, Metspalu E, Remm M, Pitchappan R, Singh L, Thangaraj K, Villems R, Kivisild T.
Am J Hum Genet. 2011 Dec 9;89(6):731-44.
PMID: 22152676

…
Evolutionary origins of insulin resistance: a behavioral switch hypothesis.
Watve MG, Yajnik CS.
BMC Evol Biol. 2007 Apr 17;7:61.
PMID: 17437648

Genetics of obesity.
O’Rahilly S, Farooqi IS.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2006 Jul 29;361(1471):1095-105. Review.
PMID: 16815794

…
Human adaptive evolution at Myostatin (GDF8), a regulator of muscle growth.
Saunders MA, Good JM, Lawrence EC, Ferrell RE, Li WH, Nachman MW.
Am J Hum Genet. 2006 Dec;79(6):1089-97. Epub 2006 Oct 10.
PMID: 1718646

Exercise-training attenuates the hyper-muscular phenotype and restores skeletal muscle function in the myostatin null mouse.
Matsakas A, Macharia R, Otto A, Elashry M, Mouisel E, Romanello V, Sartori R, Amthor H, Sandri M, Narkar V, Patel K.
Exp Physiol. 2011 Nov 4. [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 22058168

Suppression of body fat accumulation in myostatin-deficient mice.
McPherron AC, Lee SJ.
J Clin Invest. 2002 Mar;109(5):595-601.
PMID: 11877467

Myostatin mutation associated with gross muscle hypertrophy in a child.
Schuelke M, Wagner KR, Stolz LE, Hübner C, Riebel T, Kömen W, Braun T, Tobin JF, Lee SJ.
N Engl J Med. 2004 Jun 24;350(26):2682-8. No abstract available.
PMID: 15215484

…
A genome-wide association study of amygdala activation in youths with and without bipolar disorder.
Liu X, Akula N, Skup M, Brotman MA, Leibenluft E, McMahon FJ.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010 Jan;49(1):33-41.
PMID: 20215924

Evaluation of DOK5 as a susceptibility gene for type 2 diabetes and obesity in North Indian population.
Tabassum R, Mahajan A, Chauhan G, Dwivedi OP, Ghosh S, Tandon N, Bharadwaj D.
BMC Med Genet. 2010 Feb 27;11:35.
PMID: 20187968

…
Acute inflammation increases pituitary and hypothalamic glycoprotein hormone subunit B5 mRNA expression in association with decreased thyrotrophin receptor mRNA expression in mice.
van Zeijl CJ, Surovtseva OV, Wiersinga WM, Fliers E, Boelen A.
J Neuroendocrinol. 2011 Apr;23(4):310-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2826.2011.02116.x.
PMID: 21314737

Resistance to diet-induced obesity in mice globally overexpressing OGH/GPB5.
Macdonald LE, Wortley KE, Gowen LC, Anderson KD, Murray JD, Poueymirou WT, Simmons MV, Barber D, Valenzuela DM, Economides AN, Wiegand SJ, Yancopoulos GD, Sleeman MW, Murphy AJ.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Feb 15;102(7):2496-501. Epub 2005 Feb 7.
PMID: 15699348

…
Disruption of the clock components CLOCK and BMAL1 leads to hypoinsulinaemia and diabetes.
Marcheva B, Ramsey KM, Buhr ED, Kobayashi Y, Su H, Ko CH, Ivanova G, Omura C, Mo S, Vitaterna MH, Lopez JP, Philipson LH, Bradfield CA, Crosby SD, JeBailey L, Wang X, Takahashi JS, Bass J.
Nature. 2010 Jul 29;466(7306):627-31.
PMID: 20562852

Now we are mahAkAla, showing the mudra of the trishUla, being Urdhvaretas we dally with you at the heart of the pentad of kAma, whose yoni is the kAla-chakra. The flames of the pyres with popping bones and hissing flesh lash around us. In the cave of the mUlAdhAra is the glowing uchChiShTolka and in the li~Nga is hasti-pishAchI, in the maNipUra is skanda and in the hR^idaya is ShaShThI along the upward course of the suvarNabindu. The lord of the kShetra-s rules over the crown. She said the order of the signs would be thus: the trishUla, I would come as the kulA~NganA, the kShetrapAla, and pentad of kAma with the kAlachakra. You shall move through the the facets of the pentad of manmatha in the great maNDala, which is experienced by the chit, and then reach its center. Therein, you shall approach me becoming the shaktimAn and we form the yamala. Though a yamala to the perceivers of the objects, for the yugma locked in the ullAsa of rati it is advaya: sarvashaktimAn and mantra-prayogaka. But only the yogin the can bear it, else he expires even as the tathAgata in the embrace of chitrasenA. After this he knows the reality of chit and observes prakR^itI as she unfolds.

Atho dUti paripR^ichCha |
We say to the dUtI:
May we be shatrujit.
We observed you unfolding.
We saw the eka-s.
They were parama-sUtrakhAdaka-s or parama-sUtra-kR^it-s or upasUtra-s.
Can these exist without the larger jIva or did they first live the aNu-saMgraha emitted by deva savitA?
Then we saw the yugma-s.
Of them there are the agada-viSha-s and the sUtrAntarachChedaka-me-lekhaka-s.
Just like them are the dhanurviSha-s and shaktiviSha-s with their agada-s.
But they are jIva-hita rather than svahita.
Then there are the yAtudhAna-s
Then there are the jIva-s.
They have the indriyANi all made of aNu-s stemming from the bhUtAdi.
When the eka, and the yugma-s, and indriyANi are all aNu-s which we know are all your unfolding, where is the puruSha?
Is he the sattva?

Many moons ago aurvasheyI brought my attention to a curious news item in an Indian paper – in small print it narrated a village conflict involving the deployment of what might be termed “Islamized” tantra for the lack of a better word. These practices are particular common in rural areas in the Eastern side of the mahArATTa country, karnATa and Andhra. Typically, these involve a package of pseudo-mantra deployments, chemical, talismanic and astrological magic, with numerous Arabo-Persian elements that elicit considerable fear among the plebeians of those regions. Indeed fragments of such material has even found its way into the Hindi section of the mantra-mahArNava, a mantra manual of recent provenance. Initially, I found this material rather out of the limits of my investigations on the history of tAntra-shAstra. But certain chance events led me back to them, even as I unexpectedly discovered them to hold fragments of heathen thought from late antiquity, just before its catastrophic end at the hands of the second and third Abrahamisms. While we were wandering through bhagAnagari in the long past times, we ran into the Mohammedan K, who brought our attention to a body of Arabo-Persian literature collected by the Mogol tyrant Akbar. Akbar is supposed to have sent his agents all over West Asia, Egypt and Turkey to obtain this literature as he is believed to have seen it as the most important source of knowledge which explained the mysteries of the universe. He is then supposed to have immersed himself in this material even as Abu Fazl read it out him and the two apparently dabbled with the practices from these kitAb-s with the hope of acquiring “divine” powers. This literature primarily focused on mantriform, alchemical and astrological practices that were supposed to have been revealed by a certain Hirmis Malik Misr. Regarding this Hirmis, author of several volumes of such material, we are told a curious tale: Hirmis is supposed to have been a wise man who founded the religion of the Greeks and the Egyptians in the times before the great flood. After the flood he is supposed to have made an extra-terrestrial journey to the planets and upon his return to earth he is claimed to have taught astronomy at Babylon. Finally, he described as a being a prophet before the later prophets of the different Abrahamisms. Right then it struck me that in Hirmis we were witnessing a process of Islamic acculturation of one or more heathen figures from the period that they normally condemn as jahilya. Hirmis was clearly a promulgator of pre-Islamic knowledge, who was being somehow legitimized by being cast into the mold of an Abrahamistic prophet. Hirmis was clearly unknown to the poorly educated unmatta as he was absent in the rAkShasa-pustaka. This, coupled with the presence of mantriform and proto-scientific material in these texts indicated to us that these Hirmis texts actually represent a body of material of ultimately pagan origin. It also struck us that this Arabo-Persian corpus was the direct source and in other cases the indirect inspiration of the so called “Islamized” tAntrika practices as those mentioned in the beginning of our note. However, at that point we did not really see much beyond that.

Some years later we were reading about the syncretic Hellenistic cult of the deity termed “megistos kai megistos theos megas” (the greatest and the greatest great god), who was the Greek Hermes syncretized with the Egyptian Thoth. Hence, this deity was also know as Hermes trismegistos (i.e. thrice greatest). The Hermetic priests of Egypt, a sect of neo-Platonists, between 0-200 CE developed a system of worship with a corpus of accompanying texts in Greek which covered a variety of ritual, medical, chemical and astronomical issues. The Hermetic system might be caricatured thus: The god Hermes trismegistos emanates the “nuos” (may be identified with pure undifferentiated consciousness) from him. From the nuos is emanated the pysche (the subjective consciousness). The powers of Hermes, the pleroma, is said to permeate these two giving rise to the progenitor of the material universe, the sun, from which emanate and revolve around it the 8 spheres of the planets, earth and the fixed stars. From these spheres emerge various deities who control the Hermetic universe. Hence, one of the important proto-scientific contributions of the Hermetic priests was the heliocentric model. On the whole the teaching of the syncretic neo-Platonic Hermes primarily concern prognostication, interpretation of omens, use of plants and other substances and, magical rituals on one hand, and the realization of the universal, objectless consciousness on the other. Thus, in some ways in mirrored the Indic tAntrika traditions with respect to with respect to its laukIka and mokSha objectives. In the process of learning about this neo-Platonic corpus we came to realize that the Hirmis texts from the Islamic world, like the material collected by Akbar, was actually in some way connected to the Hermetica of Greco-Egyptian priests. We also understood the importance of the need for Hindus to study Hermetica because: 1) It was a quintessentially pagan production with noteworthy parallels to some of our own traditions; 2) The western interpretation and translations of Hermetica had some deep-rooted problems because they were greatly influenced by their Abrahamistic conditioning and by the need to appropriate Greco-Egyptian traditions for themselves. 3) Hermetica might have some bearing on the history of science.

The first evidence for the syncretic cult comes from an inscription from the temple of Thoth in Sakkara, Egypt, dated to 172 BC in both Demotic Egyptian and Greek, which records a meeting of Hermetic ritualists. This suggests that the fusion of Greek Platonic thought and Greek deities of old Indo-European heritage (e.g. Hermes is a cognate of Indo-Aryan puShan ) with the ancient Egyptian system of Thoth in early post-Alexandrian Egypt gave rise to the syncretic Hermes cult. Although, given Plato’s knowledge of Thoth it is possible that the pre-adaptation for the fusion was already in place even before the Alexandrian period. The Egyptian syncretic Hermes cult differed from other neo-Platonic sects, such as that represented by Plotinus, in identifying the deity emanating the universe with the sun, rather than Zeus. In this the influence of the Egyptians is suspected, as suggested by the recent publication of a pagan Demotic Egyptian temple scroll of the lecture of the avicephalic god Thoth to a philosopher. On the other hand, we should recognize that there were certain strains of Hermetica, such as the Physica of Stobaeus, which apparently followed a system closer to that of the more typical neo-Platonists [Footnote 1]. In light of these observations, it is clear that the origin of the syncretic Greco-Egyptian Hermetica needs further investigation. To add to the complexity of the situation, we may also mention in passing that certain philosophical ideas resembling those of Hermetica are already found in an even earlier Indian source, the IshAvAsyopaniShat, which accords a key place for puShan, the Indic cognate of Hermes [we shall return to the Indic angle a little further down]. Beyond the part of the Hermetic corpus with a predominantly philosophical focus, which has been studied and translated by Western scholars, the magical, proto-scientific and ritual literature has received little scholarly attention. Only when these are considered would we get a more complete picture of the entire scope of Hermetica or at least what survives of it. But even from what we can currently study, it is clear that it was once a major system of the western pagan world, whose significance is of considerable importance to a student of heathen thought.

It is in this context the Arabo-Persian Hermetica might offer some additional information. So, how did the Hermetica enter the Arabic world? As we have seen before, after the death of the Roman emperor Julian, the Hellenes found their situation increasingly compromised as the pretAcharin-s started systematically destroying their temples and schools (e.g. the 435 CE edict of Theodosius-II for the destruction of all the religious sites of the heathens and the erection of a crucifix atop them). Several heathen practitioners of the neo-Platonic system fleeing from the attacks of the second Abrahamism found refuge in the Sassanian empire (e.g. Carrhae, Harran in modern Turkey). Thus, the neo-Platonic thought continued to survive within the Sassanian empire. Given the interest expressed by the Sassanian emperor shApUr-I in Hermetica around 250 CE itself, it is not unexpected that this system continued to be valued in the Iranian regions when neo-Platonists settled there to escape the pretamata. Around 620-640 CE there was a phase of intense conflict between the Christian Byzantines and the Sassanian, which considerably weakened both sides. It was then that a new plague in the form of the third Abrahamism arose and completely consumed the Sassanians and over ran a part of the Byzantine empire. However, as the new Abrahamism spread rather rapidly under the initial Kalifs and the Ummayads, it could not uniformly steam roll the heathens in all its conquered territories. As a result pockets of heathens survived in part of the Islamic empire continuing to preserve their ancient traditions. By around 750 CE the army of Islam had brutally suppressed much of the struggle of the conquered peoples in its west Asian heartland. In the process it had either largely eliminated the older languages like Greek and Egyptian or downgraded others like Persian, Hebrew and Aramaic and replaced them with Arabic. But around this time the Ummayads were over thrown by a new Arabic dynasty of the Abbasids who founded a new capital at Baghdad. Now at the possession of large empire, having largely decimated their pre-Islamic competition, the Abbasids realized that they needed to consolidate the pre-Islamic practical knowledge, especially in medicine, chemistry, astronomy and mathematics into Arabic which had little more of its own literature than the rAkShasa-pustaka and its associated “legalism”. So they set up large effort for the translation and study of Greek, Iranian and Indian works into their language. It was in this period that some Hermetica from Greek and Iranian sources was translated into Arabic. In the early 800s the Abbasid ruler al Ma’mun marched into Harran and forced the heathens to choose one of the Abrahamisms or death. But the heathens camouflaged themselves to escape the axe of Abrahamism – this lead to the cryptic survival of the heathens in Harran till 1032-1033 CE, when the Mohammedans launched a jihad to exterminate the heathens and destroy their great temple [Footnote 2]. But it was this pocket of heathenism, which in the Abbasid period gave a major direct input of Hermetica (being its lineal inheritors) for the Arabic translations – this material had a major role in the development of the so called “Islamic science and mathematics” (e.g. the works of the scholar Thabit ibn Kurra). This material was largely reworked as “secular” knowledge within the Islamic framework – in a sense it paralleled the survival of Hellenistic knowledge in West or its reacquisition by the west via Islam.

Regarding the heathens of Harran and other pockets we have some information from a range of sources that offer a range of vignettes regarding the last days of these West Asian heathen traditions, assaulted on either side by virulent Abrahamisms. For instance, we hear of the Byzantine tyrant Maurice seeking to convert the heathens of Harran even though they were out of his reach. The very survival of the Hellenes was seen as a potent threat to Isaism. So the Isaist preachers adopted a strategy of subversion: They claimed that the ancient teachers followed by the heathens were actually prophets who had prophesied the “truth” of Isaism and that if they disbelieved these prophecies, they disbelieved their own traditions. Hence, they were called upon to convert to Isaism [This is noted in a translation of a polemical text “Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers” from Syria by Sebastian Brock; Footnote 3]. However, the heathens, at least in Harran, were not taken in by this subversion. From the Arabic sources we also understand that the tradition of Plato was important among these heathens. We hear from al Masudi that in the assembly hall of the heathens of Harran there was an aphorism of Plato inscribed on the doorknob. He also mentions in that context a teaching of Plato: “Man is a heavenly tree. The explanation of it is that he is like an inverted tree: its roots are toward heaven and its branches are toward the earth.” This bit of information suggests that among the Platonic traditions, which were alive among these heathens, this ancient metaphor of old Indic origin was current. In Indic tradition find it first mentioned in the upaniShad of the kaTha-s (KU 6.1) and expanded by kR^iShNa in his gItA (15.1-3). The other bit of information we gain from the Arabic sources is that these heathens venerated Hermes as the promulgator of their astronomical traditions. He is termed Hirmis al Hakim (Hermes the sage?), which establishes beyond doubt that the Arabo-Persian Hermitica from the Akbar’s library was a survival or a continuation of the Hellenistic Hermetica.

Among the known Arabo-Persian Hermetica we encounter several interesting elements that illustrate the breadth of this tradition: 1) There is a text dealing with countering of snake venoms using various plant products, incantations and images. One of the magical image charms that was supposed to ward of snakes was that of an eagle holding a snake in its claws. This is reminiscent of an identical image created by the Pythagorean sage Apollonius near the race track at Byzantium – the wings of this Apollonian eagle were supposed to be marked with the hours of the day and twelve of them shone brightly when the sun was up. It was demolished by the crusaders in 1204 CE when they took Byzantium. Likewise, Apollonius was said to have made several other charms in the shape of various arthropods and mammals to counter their injurious effects. Apollonius was also described as “aristos astronomos” (the great astronomer) and was supposed to have performed rituals to planetary deities. Indeed the Arabic text states that Hirmis first composed the text known as “Poisonous Animals”. Then he is supposed to have imparted this to his student balInUs (Apollonius) with whom he journeyed to al Hind and then they turned west to enter Iran. Here, Hirmis appointed balInUs as the teacher of his lore in Babylon. There he is supposed to have displayed his medical wonders. This suggests that the Arabic counter-venom Hermetica traces its origins back to the Apollonian Hermetica tradition. Several features of this work are reminiscent of the Hindu garuDa-vidyA, which eventually coalesced into the garuDa tantra-s of the shaiva pUrva-srotas. This makes it an interesting point for those studying the evolution and transmission of the garuDa vidyA-s.

2) Another unusual tradition narrated in the Arabic text is that Hermes either directly or via Plato transmitted to Aristotle the lore of charms and spells. This was the last teaching of Aristotle which he transmitted to his students on his death bed. In this teaching of Hermes via Aristotle we encounter certain peculiar points that we shall briefly touch upon along with their Hindu parallels where relevant. The secret of talismanic charms is supposed to lie in the magical nature of inverted words inscribed in them. This idea of magic via inverted words has an ancient Hindu antecedent in the shaunakIya R^igvidhAna and parishiShTha-s of the AV wherein the inverted gAyatrI or the pratiloma gAyatrI is deployed as the kR^ityAstra. The magical power of speech is also mentioned and attributed to teaching of Hermes to Plato. Further, it is said that the making of talismanic charms needs to take into account the nakShatra in which the moon is residing. This concept is explicitly stated as being the opinion of the sages of the Hindus. A list of nakShatra-s beginning with ashvayuji is provided (i.e. their Arabic names), along with their appropriateness for performing particular acts or their effects on particular people, animals and objects. This type of astral magic is distinct from the predictive astrology of the type expounded by the yavana jAtaka-s. Rather, they resemble the endogenous Hindu astral magic and the oldest version of this among the Hindus is encountered in the nakShatra kalpa of the AV parishiShaTha-s (the much later varAhamihira builds further on this). A closer examination indicates that the Arabic text has indeed been derived from the Hindu nakShatra kalpa: For example, under the description of the kR^ittikA-s (Pleiades; Dar al Thurayya) we read that talismanic charms made under this constellation destroys goats, sheep and cows and are also conducive for the successful use of chemistry and fire. In the NK we read that if a planet enters kR^ittikA then it destroys goats, sheep, cows and rats. Those engaging in keeping fire and performing metallurgy are said to be under the control of this constellation. Thus, the Hindu material appears to have be reinterpreted in the context of talismanic charms. The talismanic magic is not mentioned in this context in the Hindu text; hence, it is clear that the West Asian heathens at some point incorporated Hindu astral magic into the Greco-Egyptian talismanic Hermetica. On the other hand, for driving an enemy from his station a talismanic charm is said to be made when the moon is in Scorpio in the hour of Mars. Then a mantriform incantation is written on a metal plate and it is buried outside the enemy’s place. This practice with its use of the Greco-Egyptian constellation and hour system appears to have been inherited from that side of Hermetica attributed to the transmission via Aristotle rather than having an immediate Hindu source. This has entered the subcontinent more recently in the “Islamic” tAntrika bahAnA-type practice that we alluded to at the beginning. The Arabic work also states that Aristotle had said that the regents of planets and constellations should be invoked with complete knowledge of their nature – a dilettante ritualist might bring down a deity without knowing about them and could be killed by them.

3) Interestingly, the Arabic text adds that as per the teachings of Hermes the Hindus have amongst them most capable magicians and illusionists and then a list of Hindu magical acts are described. Some very unusual Hindu “yantra-s” are then described, which might have been taught by Hermes to Apollonius after their journey to India. Indeed, Byzantine sources allude to Apollonius making such charms. To my knowledge, no such figures or traditions are present in any extant Hindu tradition. Hence, it is not clear what exactly these charms refer to.Nevertheless, we can see that the Hermetica preserved in the Arabic sources have a lot of Hindu material that is not found in the extant and edited Greco-Egyptian Hermetica. This suggests that there might have been multiple points of interactions: The old parallels between the Greek and Hindu works (e.g. Plato’s expression of Urdhva mUlaM adhaH shAkaM or the rajju-sarpa nyAya in Carneades) represent an early layer of transmission from Hindus or in some cases might even go back to the shared Indo-European heritage of the Hindus and Greeks. We also have the reverse transmission of yavana jAtaka and hora-shAstra to the Hindus from the Greeks and certain syncretic developments like those between the pAshupata-s and cynics. In contrast, later layers of Hindu material appear to have been transmitted specifically to the heathens living in West Asia, either in a single pre-Mohammedan transmission or multiply before and also after the irruption of Mohammedanism, during the Abbasid period. The concept of rAhu and ketu in the Arabo-Persian Hermetica probably belong to a later transmission.

4) The Arabo-Persian Hermetica has a zoological section that shows some resemblances to the zoology of umAsvAti and could have been derived from it or a related Hindu source.

5) Hermes is said to have taught a strange formula that is used to summon certain powerful ghosts: “tamaghIs baghdiswad waghidas nufanaghdIs”. We have been unable to decipher what this is supposed to mean. The Greek philosophers are supposed to have used that formula once or twice an year to connect to ghosts that open the doors of unknown wisdom. The text goes on to make the remarkable statement that Aristotle got this incantation from Hermes and then he initiated Alexander into this lore. By performing an “abhichAra” ritual with this incantation on Alexander’s behalf he was able to secure victory for Alexander over the Iranians. In a modern day abhichAra encounter we heard that the former senAnI’s clansman was attacked with this incantation. A similar (indecipherable to us) incantation is prescribed Hermes in an “abhichArika” ritual which invokes Ares: “deghidius haghimdIs ghidyUs miras ardighos hidghidys mahidas dahidmas”. These names are described as the various facets of Ares. In this section, Hermes mentions that the one who perfected this incantation and placed it in his consciousness will realize his true nature. He says that it will then shine forth, even as the stationary sun at the center of the heavens. The consciousness is supposed to connect to the intellect and pull it towards itself, even as as the sun pulls the world and holds the heavenly sphere. These statements suggests that the heliocentric vision of the Greco-Egyptian Hermetica had been faithfully transmitted to the Arabic versions. This heliocentric view is stressed in many places in the Arabic Hermetica. For example, it stated all the planets are continually under the pull of the sun. that the The origins of these heliocentric ideas are not clear – they could have been derived from Seleukos or Aristarchos among the Greeks.

6) Another interesting “abhichArika” rite prescribed by Hermes invokes a set of three goddesses who is said to preside over the stars epsilon, zeta and eta Ursa Majoris. These goddess are made an offering of yaShTi, chandana and guggulu. While there is no equivalent Hindu or even Greek ritual, which we are aware of, the use of oShadhi-s that are prominent in Hindu usage is of note.

In conclusion, we find that the Arabic Hermetica contains a considerable body of material that throws light on the aspects of neo-Platonic and related West Asian heathen cultures that were ignored or lost in the Western transmissions of these traditions. There is one point of historical interest in this regard: Many Leukospheric appropriators of Greek tradition have consistently painted the Pythagorean and Platonic traditions as “rational” and “scientific” in contrast to their “superstitious”, “mystical” and even vacuously wearisome Indian counterparts. But the Hermetica surviving from the West Asian pagan traditions points in a very different direction. Indeed, it appears that the entire heathen belt from India to Rome, including Egypt (and perhaps beyond) had a rather similar general outlook in the first 5 centuries of the common era, before these traditions were snuffed out in the west by the two Abrahamisms [What is also commonly ignored is how closely the two later strains of Abrahamism resembled each other and formed an opposing block to the Eurasiatic heathenism]. From the view point of an intellectually and culturally shallow modern individual, who has acquired a veneer of scientific understanding, this matrix of ancient thought might appear ghastly or even incongruous – but the closer we look at it, the more it becomes clear that some of the sublime pieces proto-scientific and mathematical understanding emerged right from this matrix. Let us not forget that it was Proclus, one of the last of the Greek hymn-composers (i.e. a R^iShi among the yavana-s), who wrote the commentary on the first book of Euclid and the elements of physics. Thus, it appears that varAhamihira was not really very different from his yavana counterparts.

~oO0Oo~

Footnote 1: This suggested by the hymn to the gods by Stobaeus of Macedon.
Seven planets far varied in their course revolved upon the Olympian plain;
with them for ever will the Aion (cognate of yuga?) spin:
Mēnē (the moon deity) that shine by night, [and] gloomy Kronos,
[and] sweet Hēlios, and Paphiē (a name of Aphrodite) who’s carried in the shrine,
courageous Arēs, fair-winged Hermēs, and Zeus the primal source from whom nature comes.
Now they themselves have had the race of men entrusted to their care;
so that in us there is a Mēnē, Zeus, an Arēs, Paphiē, a Kronos, Hēlios and Hermēs.
Wherefore we are divided up [so as] to draw from the all-pervasive consciousness,
tears, laughter, anger, birth, reason, sleep, desire.
Tears are Kronos, birth Zeus, reason [is] Hermēs,
courage Mars, and Mēnē sleep, in sooth, and Cytherea (a name of Aphrodite) desire,
and Hēlios [is] laughter—for it is because of him that justly every
mortal thinking thing does laugh and the immortal world.

It may be noted that the Hermetic system of the seven planets is referred to by Stobaeus. Though Helios has a prime place in the hymn, it is Zeus who is described as source of all matter. Now the placement of the gods in the microcosm of the body is a feature observed in neo-Platonic thought that appears to have been particularly prominent in the Hermetic stream. It is of great interest to note that this idea mirrors a similar concept that appears earlier in India in a sUkta of the taittirIya saMhitA (hR^idayaM mayi …).

Footnote 2: This late survival of heathen tradition in Harran has a certain parallel to the lingering survival of heathen tradition in the west. We have the remarkable and mysterious case of the Greek scholar Georgios Plethon Gemistos (1355-1454 CE), who was hailed as the second Plato. Though born as an Isaist, he rejected the Isaism and advocated a full return to the old Greek polytheistic religion and neo-Platonic tradition. He re-established images of the old Greek deities and re-introduced their worship with the old Greek rituals and hymns. While repeatedly attacked by the Isaists ( e.g. he is called a “poisonous viper”), he resorted to camouflage to escape their attention. Nevertheless, he was overly optimistic stating that: “that not many years after his death Mohammed and Christ would collapse and the true truth would shine through every region of the globe… and it will not differ much from paganism”. Plethon also presented a clear pan-pagan vision, recognizing the ancient homology among the heathen peoples: He points out that among the Greeks the heathen tradition is based on the lineage of teachings stemming from the ritualists of the temple of Zeus and Gaia at Dodona, Iphitus who restablished the Olympic rituals and athletics, and inspired sages like Polyides, Tiresias, Pythagoras and Plato. Among the non-Greeks he states that the equivalent traditions were those promulgated by Zarathustra and the Iranian ritualists in Persia and the brAhmaNa-s in India. Now the point of interest with respect to survival of the Hellenistic traditions in the Islamic sphere is the way Plethon became a pagan. We should realize that in the Byzantine empire itself the old Greek pagan tradition was all but lost, and the knowledge of the Iranian and Indian systems was almost certainly lost. Plethon’s reacquisition of heathenism was due to his training under an interesting Jewish scholar Elissaeus from the Osman empire. Though born a Jew, Elissaeus himself was a knowledgeable practitioner of the old Hellenistic religion and was also learned in certain Iranian traditions of the Zarathustrian ritualists. Unfortunately, Elissaeus’s cover was blown and he was immolated alive at the decree of the mullahs. It appears that Elissaeus had acquired his heathen tradition as a part of the cryptic survival and transmission of old Hellenistic and Iranian knowledge in the Islamic sphere, as seen at Harran. However, the absence of Hermetica in the teachings of Elissaeus and Plethon suggests that this was another late surviving tradition independent from that of Hermetic heathens. Here the role of the Jews, like Rashid-ad-din, in the gathering of knowledge of various peoples of the world, under the Mongol Il-khans, might have resulted in them acquiring some of these traditions.

Footnote 3: In India too the Isaist and Mohammedan subversionists have deployed a similar strategy claiming that the Hindu texts were a prelude to the truth claims of their respective cults and their cults were actually prophesied in the Hindu texts ! Some moronic Hindus might be taken in by such claims and softened for subsequent penetration by the Abrahamists.

In contrast to their extant descendents, the Arya-s of yore stressed the importance political thought in no unclear terms. In his deathbed lecture to the victorious pANDu monarch, the grandsire said in his famous triShTubh-s:

majjettrayI daNDanItau hatAyAM sarve dharmA na bhaveyur viruddhAH |
sarve dharmAsh chAshramANAM gatAH syuH kShAtre tyakte rAjadharme purANe ||
If the politico-legal system disappears the three-fold shruti will disappear, all dharma-s that inculcate the human duties are overturned. Indeed, if the ancient political system upheld by the kShatriya-s are forsaken, then all the duties in respect of all the modes of life, become lost.

sarve tyAgA rAjadharmeShu dR^iShTAH sarvA dIkShA rAjadharmeShu choktAH |
sarve vidyA rAjadharmeShu choktAH sarve lokA rAjadharmAn praviShTAH ||
In politics are realized all forms of renunciation, in politics are united all ritual initiations (dIkSha-s); all kinds of knowledge are linked in politics; and the [conduct of] all the worlds are based in politics.

yathA jIvAH prakR^itau vadhyamAnA dharmAshritAnAm upapIDanAya |
evaM dharmA rAjadharmair viyuktAH sarvAvasthaM nAdriyante svadharmam ||
As the destruction of lives in natural calamities result the torment of those abiding in dharma, even so dharma-s uncoupled from political support causes [people of] all professions scatter from their ordained paths.

The politics implied by the pitAmaha in these triShTubh-s is that which upholds all other dharma-s – the rAjadharma – the dharma that encompasses the administrative, the legislative, judicial and military systems of a state. Its perversion or loss is seen as a catastrophe by the Hindus – something that results in the breakdown of all other dharma-s. Hence, even the dharma-s associated with knowledge, renunciations, rituals and the very operation of society are seen to rest upon it. The failure to heed such words is indeed evident in the unfolding fates of the ancient nations of Greece, Rome and the Egypt. The perversion and destruction of the rAjadharma in these nations by the pretamata or the rAkShasa-mata first resulted in the loss of their “veda” followed by the erosion and breakdown other foundations of civilization. Indeed, the fate of these nations is a preview of what awaits bhArata if its peoples were to continue acceding to the entry of the rAkShasa, preta and rudhira mata-s into its polity.

~oOo~

First two of the above verses are inscribed on the frontispiece of Kashi Prasad Jayaswal, the vaishya scholar’s monograph on Hindu polity. Jayaswal was traditionally educated in the devavANI by a Hindu ascetic and subsequently, inspired by the Shri Lankan scholar Wickramasinghe, he applied his knowledge to several important studies in the rediscovery of the lost Hindu past. He was also a nationalist who supported the cause of liberating the Hindu nation from the fangs of the English. In process he came to study in depth the structural and operational features of old Hindu polity (i.e. those feature distinct from the statements of legal code laid down in the dharmashAstra-s). This was the first major development on the earlier studies on Hindu polity by Law and RK Mookerji. Indeed, we may see his work as the seed that initiated a vigorous discourse among Hindu scholars leading to the re-investigations of the field by likes of DR Bhandarkar, BK Sarkar, NC Vandyopadhyay, Mahalingam and Altekar. During these studies he befriended Rahula Sankrityayana and was deeply influenced by him. Hence, we see in his monograph on Hindu polity the following dedication:
“To the memory of the republican vR^iShNis, kaThas, vaishAlas and shAkyas who announced philosophies of freedom from devas, death, cruelty and caste.”
Thus, despite the erudition and analytical clarity in Jayaswal’s research, he had already sown the seeds for the befuddlement of the generations that would follow. Rather than building up, consolidating and practically implementing the results of the scholarly discourse initiated by his work, much of Indian expression in this direction (outside the relatively narrow range of academic scholars listed above) focused on the message of his unfortunate dedication. In a sense, his dedication betrays a certain internalization of the occidental framework during his study of law in England. In a strict sense one might point out that indeed certain ideas in the upaniShad-s and the teachings of the tathAgata tried to sideline the deva-s, but neither of them even vaguely proposed to render them otiose, as implied by Jayaswal. As far as varNa went, the imputations of Jayaswal are even farther from the truth, in regard to the republics he mentions or even more generally. Hence, indeed worthwhile to re-approach the issues of Hindu polity with a different spirit, one which does not a priori accept the superiority of modern or Western constructs in this regard.

~oOo~

One may question as to why ancient politico-legal Hindu thinking of any value at all in this day and age, so as to spend time re-approaching it from different angles ? First, Our interests in this regard are largely philological, philosophical and scientific. Second, while we are not particularly knowledgeable in geopolitical, military and strategic issues, it is not difficult to note that many of the so called front-line strategic thinkers in post-independence India have a very poor understanding of their own legacy, especially in the old language of the Hindu cosmopolis. We can easily see that this lacuna in their understanding results in disastrous formulations of strategy – a rather sordid situation for the successors of bhIShma, vidura or viShNugupta. Instead,  we are provided with are strategic constructs informed by facile ideas, such as those held by chAchAjI and the mahAtmA. Thus, looking into classical rAja-dharma is a necessary corrective to avoid the catastrophic course taken by Greece or Egypt. Third, modern political constructs created in the west are based on Abrahamistic frameworks, which has resulted in mohasUtra-s such as: Equal before God; Equal before law; All people are equal; The state having more rights over your genes than yourself! These ideas are not in line with the biological ground situation: individuals are not blank slates and not genetically equal; Selective pressures have shaped different groups of humans differently; not every individual is equally important for society or even for his own family; When fitness of an individual is considered, included fitness cannot be neglected in the equation. Hindus of yore were unfettered thinkers being influenced by the biological ground situation much more than post-Abrahamistic western thought. Thus, we might find in Hindu political thought elements that might be more consonant with ground realities than the western constructs. This is important because a society that can come terms with, rather than clash with, its own sociobiology is less likely to be limited by deleterious policies.

Most importantly, rAjadharma was indeed the common denominator that allowed us to define the nation of the Hindus. So it is not surprising that it has been attacked by the enemies of the Hindu nation in all manner of inane ways. One common tactic has been that of inducing amnesia – trying to claim that the rAjadharma is a construct for the exploitation of the vish (or in some alien narratives the shUdra-s and avarNa-s) by the brahma-kShatra alliance. Here, the detractor causes selective memory loss with respect to the historical evidence and tries to obfuscate the temporal series of events by equating the spread of the memetic package with its alleged forcible imposition by its innovators. After the Arya-s established themselves in northern India they let loose the meme of rAjadharma – evidently it was so attractive a meme in heathen societies that it expansively spread over the whole jambudvIpa and beyond, even more than the genetic material brought by the Arya-s. In India, over a period spanning well over two millennia we observe three modes of transmission of rAjadharma: 1) The erudite transmission, which was largely spearheaded by the brAhma-kShatra combine. 2) Its incorporation into itihAsa-purANa and transmission by both brAhmaNa-s and sUta-s for general education of all varNa-s. 3) The regional transmission in desha-bhASha-s, in many cases to people at the Indo-Aryan fringe, which was largely the work local authors, not necessarily belonging to the brahma-kShatra elite. In regard to the latter, we may point out the relatively early work in Tamil of tiruvaLLuvar belonging to the traditional drAviDa ritualist jAti. The tirukkuraL represents a classical example of a concise yet complete transmission of dharma literature in a desha-bhASha, wherein the teachings of manu and chANakya along with other dharma teachings are summarized. This phenomenon continued over the ages. As pointed out by Jayaswal one might consider the writings of rAmadAs in mahArATTI or those of guru gobind in hindi as such transmissions of rAjadharma that happened within the context of regional religious movements. In this regard, we are led to a noteworthy point by way of Jayaswal’s work: He draws our attention to the political work nItivAkyAmR^ita by the naked jaina AchArya somadeva sUri who was a protege of the chAlukya mahAsAmanta of the rAShTrakUTa kR^iShNa III. The jaina, not surprisingly, expresses considerable rivalry towards brAhmaNa and kaula tAntrika-s (as in his apologetic novel yashastilaka), but at the same entirely internalizes the rAjadharma issuing forth from great brAhmaNa authorities like bR^ihaspati and ushanA kAvya. He, following old Hindu tradition, admits that rAjadharma was founded by these ancient brAhmaNa-s, and lays out what is enjoined by such authorities as the norm in political wisdom. Likewise, the tathAgata has incorporated verses from the mAnava dharmashAstra into his dhamma pAda (e.g. 8.9 and 19.5) by rendering them word for word into vulgar pAli. In Tibet we find the tsa na ka rgyal po’i lugs kyi bstan bcos, which is a work on rAjadharma based on chANakya’s maxims written by king bhojadeva paramAra that considerably influenced the kings of Tibet. Similarly, we find multiple nItishAstra-s derived from saMskR^ita originals in the old Indonesian language that were in vogue in the Hindu kingdoms of Indonesia. This shows that the meme of rAjadharma always traveled together with the Indian religious traditions, be it the classical shruti-based tradition or the heterodox shruti-virodhaka traditions or the more regional flavors that did not use the devabhASha. Hence, the rAjadharma meme is a major common thread rooted in the original Arya-dharma that runs across divergent traditions of the subcontinent, even encompassing groups with little Sanskritic learning or those with anti-Vedic tendencies. It is for this reason that secularism is detrimental to the Hindus – it breaks the organic connection that exists between politico-legal thinking and religion in the Hindu world. As a result it criminalizes Hindu participation in politics on one side and on the other it estranges the different divergent dharma traditions by removing their common thread i.e., the rAjadharma. It was for this reason the policies of the English-approved Indian leaders in the last days of the the British rAj have had long-lasting destructive effects on Indian polity. Hence, every conscious Hindu must oppose secularism in a Hindu state.

~oOo~

Vedic election of the rAjan and the samiti
In the last part of this epistle we shall examine the validity of ideas first presented by Jayaswal on one of the oldest political institutions of the Arya-s – the Vedic samiti. Jayaswal saw the samiti as an assembly of the whole people for the election of the rAjan. Thus, he believed that the Vedic samiti was the origin of Hindu democracy. As for the election of the rAjan, Jayaswal appears to be on relatively firm ground as, indeed, the kaushika sUtra of the atharvaveda lays out an ancient ritual in which the rAjan elected by the vish (people) is inaugurated. This is made clear in the mantra-s recited by the purohita on this occasion:
tvAM visho vR^iNatAM rAjyAya tvAm imAH pradishaH pa~ncha devIH |
varShman rAShTrasya kakudi shrayasva tato na ugro vi bhajA vasUni || (AV-vulgate 3.4.2)

The people have elected you to kingship, you have [been established among] the five divine directions; at the summit of the state, situated at the pinnacle, from there endowed with mighty power distribute the wealth among us.

Now this is corroborated by another mantra deployed by the brahmA for a similar purpose:
A tvAhArSham antar abhUr dhruvas tiShThAvichAchalat |
vishas tvA sarvA vA~nChantu mA tvad rAShTram adhi bhrashat || (AV-vulgate 6.87.1; cf. RV 10.173.1)

I [the brahmA] have brought you forth, you have entered, stand firm not unsteady; let all people choose you, let the the state not fall away from you.

This suggests that in the Vedic system the people might elect or choose a rAjan, but what is the relationship of this to the samiti? Here we need to take a much closer look at the Vedic texts to afford a better picture.We are informed of two distinct assemblies of the Arya-s in mantra-s deployed in the AV ritual for the two assemblies to reach a consensus with the yajamAna:

sabhA cha mA samitish chAvatAM prajApater duhitarau saMvidAne |
yenA saMgaChA upa mA sa shikShAch chAru vadAni pitaraH saMgateShu || (AV-vulgate 7.12.1; cf. shatapatha brAhmaNa 4.1.4.1 for the equivalent shukla yajurvedIya ritual)

Let both the sabhA and the samiti, the two daughters of prajApati reaching a consensus favor me. May he train me in [the means] by which I achieve consensus [in these assemblies], O ancestors may I speak well in these assemblies.

The two distinct assemblies, the sabhA and the samiti, are considered daughters of prajApati (an embodiment of the state), and we learn that speeches are made in these assemblies with the aim of trying to convince them to reach a consensus with the individual applying to them. The same two, sabhA and samiti are mentioned in the same order in the AV royal ritual to aditi as virAj. Here the sabhA and samiti are described as becoming fit with the invocation of aditi into them (AV-vul 8.10.4-5). We further learn that the king is regulated by samiti, i.e. his decisions need arise from the concordance of the samiti. This is supported by a mantra to this effect in the first royal ritual mentioned above.

dhruvo.achyutaH pra mR^iNIhi shatrUn ChatrUyato.adharAn pAdayasva |
sarvA dishaH saMmanasaH sadhrIchIr dhruvAya te samitiH kalpatAm iha ||(AV-vulgate 6.88.3)

Firm, unmoving, may you [i.e. the newly chosen rAjan] exterminate your enemies, make your enemies fall under your feet; may from all directions a consensus and concordance in action be reached with you; may the samiti reach a consensus for fixing [your decisions].
A similar mantra is seen in the rohita-rAShTra-bhR^ita ritual:

rohito yaj~nasya janitA mukhaM cha rohitAya vAchA shrotreNa manasA juhomi |
rohitaM devA yanti sumanasyamAnAH sa mA rohaiH sAmityai rohayatu || (AV-vulgate 13.1.13)

The ruddy one is the generator and the mouth of the sacrifice; with speech, hearing and mind I make an oblation to the ruddy one, in the ruddy one the deva-s go with a beneficent mind, may he make me ascend, when the samiti rises.

These mantra-s are deployed, among other things, so that the samiti reaches a consensus to uphold or fix the rAjan’s decisions (See also RV 10.166.4, a mantra among other thing for the samiti to hand one the mandate). This conclusion is also supported by the evidence provided by a mantra for the converse to happen. This mantra is from recitations used in the abhichArika ritual of the bhR^igu-s against the inimical vaitahavya rulers who had harmed them. Here a spell is laid to prevent the samiti from supporting them.

na varShaM maitrAvaruNaM brahmajyam abhi varShati |
nAsmai samitiH kalpate na mitraM nayate vasham ||(AV-vulgate 5.19.15)

The rain of mitra and varuNa does not rain upon the brAhmaNa-harmer, the samiti does not accord him a consensus, no friend comes under his influence.

There are several Vedic references of the king going to the samiti:
yatrauShadhIH samagmata rAjAnaH samitAviva |(RV 10.97.6ab)

A [physician] has an assembly of medicinal plants even as a king has a samiti.

Further:
pari sadmeva pashumAnti hotA rAjA na satyaH samitIr iyAnaH | (RV 9.92.6ab)
The hotar seeks the pen rich in cattle, even as a true king attends the samiti.

Thus, we see that a true rajan is one who attends the assembly of the samiti. This is confirmed by references such as those in the chAndogya brAhmaNa of the sAmaveda where the pa~nchAla monarchs (e.g. pravAhana jaivali) are described as attending the samiti-s of the pa~nchAla-s. It is from the description in the latter text and the sum-total of the Vedic evidence that we conclude that the samiti was not an assembly to elect the rAjan, as suggested by Jayaswal. Rather, it was an assembly that regulated the rAjan’s decisions by way of reaching a consensus or majority agreement. It was also a place for intellectual discussions. Thus, the samiti was a body that was critical to the government of the Arya-s in the highest level legislation rather than as a electoral assembly.

With respect to the sabhA, Jayaswal is largely correct in noting that it was different from the samiti and that it had a primarily judicial function. This is indeed supported, as he points out, by the pAraskAra gR^ihyasUtra 3.13. This suggestion is further supported by the mantra RV 10.71.10:
sarve nandanti yashasAgatena sabhAsAhena sakhyA sakhAyaH |
kilbiShaspR^it pituShaNir hy eShAm araM hito bhavati vAjinAya ||

The friends are delighted in the friendship of him who returns in triumph, having been declared the winner in the sabhA; he is the remover of the accusation, the nourisher, he inclined and fit to bring victory.

The remover of the accusation phrase supports the idea that the sabhA was the place where legal matters were settled by a majority. This is further clarified by sAyaNa in his commentary on the atharvavedIya mantra (also seen in the shatapatha brAhmaNa) on the sabhA:

vidma te sabhe nAma nariShTA nAma vA asi |
ye te ke cha sabhAsadas te me santu savAchasaH ||(AV-vulgate 7.12.2)

We know your name, O sabhA, the inviolable majority decision is your name; who ever sits in the sabhA may they speak in my favor.

In explaining this sAyaNa states that the name nariShTA derives from it being the inviolable majority opinion being reached in the assembly: bahavaH saMbhUya yady ekaM vAkyaM vadeyus…na parair ati-la~NghyaM ataH anatila~Nghya-vAkyatvAt nariShTeti | This indeed suggests that the sabhA was place where binding judicial decisions were reached. However, we do not hear of the rAjan being mentioned in connection with the sabhA, unlike the samiti. This suggests that the sabhA probably had a local role unlike the royal samiti. Alternatively, it might point to the separation of the judicial wing of the government from the sphere of the rAjan. In any case, the beginning of the rAja-dharma Arya-s can be seen as having several distinct departments which are clearly distinguished in the vaidika statements on these matters: 1) the rAjan – the head of the state; 2) the samiti which worked with the rAjan; 3) the sabhA which administered justice; 4) the senA – the army.Thus, we have been endowed with a long tradition of rAjadharma that goes back to the shruti itself – to neglect and pervert it is truly reflective of our failure in re-acquiring our traditions.

What this tree shows is that the basal most split in molluscs separated the shell-less and multi-shelled Aculifera from the primitively single-shelled Conchifera.When this information is combined with the morphological data from extant and fossil form such as as Wiwaxia, the halkieriids, Odontogriphus, Orthrozanclus, Acaenoplax, and early polyplacophoran forms it raises the possibility that the molluscs were primitively multi-shelled like the chitons (polyplacophora). The chaetodermatids and neomenids are seen as reverting to a shell-less state, but with chetae-like calcareous spicules that are reminiscent of the sclerites of the ancestral forms. Admittedly, this argument regarding the primitively multi-shelled is a complicated one that depends on the interpretation of the morphology of fossil taxa and their relationship to extant taxa. The hypothesis might be developed based on the following points:

First, it should be noted that the earliest forms clearly identified as molluscs go back to the Early Cambrian (~540 Mya) and include primarily minute (millimeter size range; though a few cm range forms have been found from the early Cambrian of Spain), single-shelled forms and a few bivalve like forms. Unfortunately, beyond their shells, we know very little of their soft-part morphology. Hence, we cannot be too certain regarding their affinities. The Burgess shale and related assemblages are from the Middle Cambrian (~505 Mya) in which we find a profusion of enigmatic forms that bear several features in common with molluscs-
1) The presence of the rasping radula is shared by Wiwaxia and Odontogriphus with the molluscs.
2) Wiwaxia is united with the halkieriids, Orthrozanclus, Acaenoplax and extant aculiferan molluscs by the presence of spicule-like sclerites.
3) Halkieriids have two shells (anterior and posterior), Orthrozanclus has one shell (anterior) and Acaenoplax has seven shells. Thus, they share the presence of one or more shells with the molluscs.

Based on this web of shared characters, it appears that these enigmatic Cambrian and Silurian forms were basal molluscs that survived along side the more derived molluscs closer to the extant lineages in the earlier part of the Paleozoic.

Now among extant molluscs the the chitons and the remaining shelled forms share several common characters in addition to the presence of shells:
1) The presence of an aorta through which the blood is pumped to the body by the ventricle.
2) The structure of the radula and the presence of a distinct esophagus, stomach and intestine.
3) Tetraneurous nervous system – the presence of 4 ventral nerve cords – two pedal and two visceral.
4) A prominent creeping sole.
Now the polyplacophorans and conchiferans share some other characters:
1) Eight sets of serial gills and dorso-ventral retractor muscles are shared with monoplacophorans .
2) Eight sets of pedal retractor muscles are shared by Cambrian bivalves and polyplacophorans.

From this we might reconstruct the common ancestor of extant molluscs as having a heart with an aorta, a digestive tract differentiated into histologically distinct compartments, a tetraneurous nervous system, a creeping sole and with eight serial gills and dorso-ventral retractor muscles. We can also infer that it had shells, but the question is how many shells? To answer this we have to look into the relationship between the shells and the eight segment serialization of the ancestor of the extant molluscs. On the basis of the absence of this eight segment serialization suggests that the halkieriids, Wiwaxia, Odontogripus and Orthrozanclus lie outside of the clade comprised of crown group molluscs.One might argue that they could instead be secondarily degenerate like the chaetodermatids and neomenids, but the above fossil forms do not show any other signs of degeneration seen in the above-named extant clades. Acaenoplax, though a somewhat later form from the Silurian, helps in understanding how the the eight segment state came into being. Acaenoplax shows eight shells like the chitons; however, these 8 shells do not correspond to eight equivalent segments like say in an annelid’s body plan. Acaenoplax also shows such annelid-like segments, which are about 19 in number. The eight shell are placed atop these 19 annelid-like segments. This suggests that eight segment shell pattern is independent of underlying annelid-like segmentation and arose independently of the latter. This , together with the presence of 7-8 bands in the larvae of chaetodermatids (with calcium carbonate secreting shells) and neomenids, suggest that the eight segment pattern arose as a consequence of the innovation of the eight-shelled state. Now we interpret the two-shelled halkieriids and the one-shelled Orthrozanclus as resembling intermediates towards the eight-shelled state, with the shell-producing zones emerging from the anterior and posterior ends and serially developing inwards along with the emergence of associated musculature. Under this scenario, the 8-segmented patterns in the monoplacophorans (which the above phylogeny suggests as being basal cephalopods) and the primitive bivalves is a remnant of the ancestral eight-segmented pattern that arose as consequence of the eight-fold shell pattern, as seen in Acaenoplax and perhaps the even earlier Matthevia. Thus, we infer that the common ancestor of the extant molluscs was eight-shelled and that this serialized shell patterning was lost early in the evolution of Conchifera. However, in at least some of the basal lineages within Conchifera the eight-fold musculature appears to have been retained.

Among other things this new phylogeny also raises questions such as what was the state of the eyes in the molluscan common ancestor. Among the Conchiferans the cephalopods and gastropods share cephalic eyes, the isolation of the head from the visceral mass, the terminally located mantle cavity and antagonistic muscle systems. In light of the above phylogeny we are now forced to wonder if these features are after all convergent in those two lineages.The emergence of monoplacophorans as basal cephalopod leads us to a speculative idea regarding cephalopod arms : The coleoids tend to have 8-10 arms. We wonder if this number of arms is a remnant of the ancient 8 segment pattern and is primitive for the cephalopods. Under this interpretation the the coleoid state would be primitive and the numerous arms of the Nautilus is seen as a secondary proliferation. Further, this tree would also suggests that the fossil hypseloconids with multiseptate shells as in the Nautilus might be an intermediate form between the monoplacophorans and the crown cephalopods.

Finally, this tree provides firm support for the completely convergent origin of cephalopod intelligence (also this). The common ancestor of all molluscs can be now confidently reconstructed as having a rather limited brain. Apparently, the emergence of a well-developed brain happened in stages within cephalopods. The Nautilus, as shown by the studies of Crook et al. have a reasonable memory but not a very developed brain. The long gone cephalopods in the nautiloid radiation probably started showing the first advances in neural capacity, which further expanded even as the vertebrates started expanding their own brain power.

1) Resolving the evolutionary relationships of molluscs with phylogenomic tools; Smith et al.
2) Computer reconstruction and analysis of the vermiform mollusc acaenoplax hayae from the Herefordshire Lagerstaette (Silurian, England), and implications for molluscan phylogeny; Sutton et al.
3) A molecular palaeobiological hypothesis for the origin of aplacophoran molluscs and their derivation from chiton-like ancestors; Vinther et al.
4) Memory of visual and topographical features suggests spatial learning in the ancient cephalopod, nautilus (Nautilus pompilius L.); Crook et al.

kAshmaryAH kR^itamAlam udgatadalaM koyaShTikaSh TIkate nIrAshmantaka shimbi chumbana-mukhA dhAvanty apaH pUrNikAH |
dAtyUhais tinishasya koTaravati skandhe nilIya sthitaM vIrunnIDakapotakUjitam anukrandanty adhaH kukkubhAH ||

kAshmaryAH=Gmelina trees; kR^itamAlam=Cassia tree; udgata-dalaM= spread-out leaves; koyaShTikaSh=lapwing; TIkate=hops up; nIrAshmantaka= river Bauhinia; shimbi=pod chumbana-mukhA= touching mouth; dhAvanty=run; apaH=water; pUrNikAH=hornbills ; dAtyUhais= purple moorhens; tinishasya= of Dalbergia tree; koTaravati= with a hollow; skandhe= branch; nilIya=settles in; sthitaM= situated; vIrunnIDa= tree nesting; kapota=dove; kUjitam=cooing; anukrandanty= cries; adhaH=below; kukkubhAH= red jungle fowl.

Here we get a remarkable description of the diverse avifauna of India and some flora on a hot summer day. Any naturalist in India can identify with this scene painted by bhavabhUti:
From the Gmelina trees the lapwing hops up [to seek the shade of the] spread-out leaves of the Cassia tree; The hornbills having barely touched the river Bauhinia’s pods with their beaks retreat to get water; A branch with hollow of the Dalbergia is made a residence by the purple moorhens; even as the red jungle fowl standing below answers the cooing of the doves nesting in the trees with its cries.

Thus, 5 species of birds and 4 species of trees are mentioned by bhavabhUti in this verse. As an aside one may note that the word nIDa in the above verse is a cognate of Latin nIDus and nest in English – a word of proto-Indo-European provenance.

The densely peopled lands of bhArata, where resources are limiting and intra-specific competition is intense, one has some of the finest opportunities to savor the ethology of the third chimpanzee. Many moons ago when we had just transitioned to college we observed that several males were taking the puff unconstrained by the strictures that characterized school life. We observed, that such smokers typically drew a bevy of women around them. We were discussing cause of this effect with kalashajA. Our own reasoning went along the lines of the handicap principle: The puffing we reasoned was signaled to the females that the individuals had good genes as they were apparently functional despite imbibing toxins. On the other hand aurvasheyI argued that the typical female would simply not see handicap in smoking and that the handicap principle worked only for the guys who imbibed far more injurious substances such as “iodex” or kerosene. Instead, she hypothesized that smoking damaged the vocal cords and upon healing they were left with a lower pitch and that females were attracted towards males with low-pitched voices. Of course neither of us tested these hypothesis and at best continued to gather anecdotal observations. To be fair, kalashajA made an attempt with langurs about 3 years after that conversation during her month’s foray into some forest in Madhya Pradesh, but was unable to come up with statistically significant results beyond some evidence for sex differences pitch of vocalization. More recently, we revisited the issue of pitch in primate vocalizations: there have been several studies showing that the screeches of lion tailed monkeys and Japanese monkeys, the grunts of baboons, and the screams of chimpanzees and bonobos just like our own vocalizations are sexually dimorphic. For example, the vowel-like grunts of baboons, like human vowels are uttered at lower pitches by males than females. So the the lower pitch of male vocalizations probably go back to the common ancestor of catarrhines at which point the sexual dimorphism in size became pronounced. Coming to the issue of sexual dimorphism in pitch, it is clear that the male pitch responds to testosterone due to steroid receptors in the vocal folds initiating a distinct developmental program at puberty (thickening and lengthening) and the descent of the larynx is greater in males reaching its maximum depth at puberty. Thus, the pitch can theoretically convey the testosterone status of a male and thus be subject to selection by females because they are on the look out for males with higher testosterone.

On the other hand an alternative, though related, effect can occur: As voice pitch indicates testosterone status it might signal to other males the aggressiveness of a male (proxy for testosterone status) in the course of male-male conflicts. Secondly, as the descent of the larynx also decides the pitch and energy of the vocalization, bigger males are likely to have a longer vocal tract resulting in a lower pitch higher energy sounds; thus, pitch could also convey the size of males and thereby his threat potential to other males. Given these factors selection for lower pitch in males could be a consequence of the pressures from male-male conflict – indeed, low pitched high energy vocalization is a well-known contributor to dominance behavior. This leaves us with the question of did lower pitch in males evolve due to female driven sexual selection or did it arise as consequence of selection from male-male conflicts? In the latter case the females are merely cuing on to it because they are seeking indicators for males likely to be successful in male-male conflicts. Ethological studies in both western societies and the hunter-gatherers of the Hadza tribe in Africa suggest that males with lower pitched vocalization sire more children. Further, females who are breast-feeding infants tended to prefer higher-pitched men – suggesting that they perceive potential threat to their genes from high testosterone males in this period. Finally, low-pitch was found to be positively correlated with high testosterone, propensity for aggression and to some degree with size and in males. So the available data does strongly suggest that lower pitch is related to reproductive success and is a proxy for male fitness and conflict capability in humans, but this does not answer whether the difference evolved under female selection or male-male conflict. Given the evidence from vocalizations in dominance behavior in baboons and other monkeys, the phylogenetic argument would be that lower pitch primarily arose in the context of male-male conflicts, and female merely use it as an indicator to choose males who would emerge successful in such conflicts.

However, we further suspect that female use of voice pitch in mate selection in Homo sapiens might be placed under the framework of the theory of Gauri Pradhan and van Schaik. They postulate:
“Females maximize their fitness when they can freely choose their mates, but males are expected to use sexually dimorphic weaponry not only to displace other males, but also to overcome female preferences and thus acquire matings by force whenever they can. Females should therefore avoid coercive males and avoid using weaponry as a criterion for male quality wherever possible, and rely on male viability indicators that cannot be used to coerce females (i.e. ornaments).”
In catarrhine primates, like the baboon, the langur, orangutan, gorilla and chimpanzee, males possess formidable sexually dimorphic weaponry that can be used in coercing females. But apparently after the divergence of the chimpanzee from the line leading to Homo there appear to have been certain subtle changes in social organization and notable changes in morphology in the latter that resulted in greater female ability to prevent mating attempts by non-preferred males. This conferred fitness benefits to females in being able to more freely choose males and thereby set off a selection against choosing by weaponry and selection for choosing by ornaments. In this scenario male vocal pitch was used as an ornament that did not enable coercion (as against large canines) in mate choice by females, but at the same time had value in male-male conflicts for its dominance function. On the other hand, high vocal pitch in females signals greater femininity (higher estrogen) to males and increases near ovulation signaling reproductive capability to males. Thus, there has been a direct selection for higher pitch in females by males.

Military manpower management and military entrepreneurship
One of the major shortcomings of the earlier military narratives has emerged from the false and even paradoxical characterization of the Hindu military character by the English. At the heart of this contradictory characterization lies the assertion that the Hindus by themselves were rather incapable of military organization or management. On one hand they were described as being innately soft or weak. Thus, we hear from English apologists such as Charles Hamilton describing Hindus as a “gentle, peaceable people, cultivating fine arts, who were powerless against the martial vigor of the Mogol invaders”. He goes on to describe the Hindu as “soft and effeminate” with an “abasement of mind which is the necessary consequence of a long state of slavish subjugation” that he attributes to “their constitutional apathy”, “ their mode of living” and “the delicate texture of their bodies”. Indeed, to a degree such images have on occasions been internalized by Hindus themselves as is amply clear from Jadunath Sarkar’s Military history of India and more recently encouraged by the Anglosphere [Footnote 1]. On the other hand, the English made it appear that the manly culture of European military and discipline and hard training could make a warrior out of even these soft Hindus. Thus, we have Major Munro state: “but the Europeans have since shown that rigid discipline will make a soldier of a Pariar, the lowest of all casts.” In yet another contradictory twist, the English went on to propose the theory of martial races. In this they characterized certain sections of ethnic spectrum of India, namely the sikh-s and gorkha-s, along with Moslems as martial races, who unlike the rest of the Indians were imbued with innate military predilections. However, completely dismissing the endogenous role of the guru-s and subsequent leaders like baNDa in the case of the sikh-s and pR^ithivi-nArAyaNa-shAha-deva in the case of the gorkha-s, the English claimed credit for identifying these martial tribes and developing them into a proper military force – in a sense a dehumanized asset for European use. Thus, the essential anecdote created by the English was that the Indians were incapable of endogenous military manpower management. They did not even have the concept due to their Hindu ways in which a small kShatriya varNa alone had military capability. It ultimately took the English to recognize the military manpower potential both in the “martial races” and the apparently non-military jAti-s and develop them for war. On a related issue they also presented the Hindus as entirely lacking a culture of military entrepreneurship – i.e., utilizing military manpower as an asset that was available as a commodity that could be leveraged for business. Thus, it is portrayed almost as though Hindus had no serious business model for military organization before the coming of the English.

Nothing can be farther from the truth with regards to the inability of the Hindu to mobilize across varNa or jAti lines. Hindu society was structured in way that followed natural human tendencies and favored compartmentalization of duties and division of labor. This provided an intrinsic robustness to the system and avoided uni-dimensional development. But this did not mean that traditionally the different sections of society were not armed or were incapable of mobilizing when a need arose. From the history of shivAjI, the founder of the mahArATTa empire, it is clear that the he mobilized all the major social sections for his army. Indeed, he recruited tribal pastoralists like dhangAr-s, avarNa-s such as mahAr-s and mAh~Ng (traditionally lowest ranked jAti-s), shUdra agriculturalists like kuNbI-s, in addition to kohli-s, kAyastha-s, mahArATTa-s and brAhmaNa-s. Nor was this practice an innovation of shivAjI. Indeed, as we have seen, before him mahArANa pratApa siMha of mevAD also recruited widely across jAti-varNa lines to form a national army to counter the Jihad of tyrant Akbar – every one from brAhmaNa-s and mehtA businessmen to bhilla tribesmen were organized into regiments by pratApa for this war. Importantly, after his elite troops and officer ranks were seriously depleted in the encounter at Haldighati, pratApa and his son amara siMha were able to continuing fighting and win major victories by training and fielding several new bhilla contingents, who proved to be an effective fighting force. Nearly contemporaneous with pratApa was mahArANI durgAvatI, the last of the chandrAtreya-s who was able to build and field an effective fighting force comprised of the goND tribesmen against Akbar’s Ghazi-s. Thus, the training of tribesmen or avarNa-s to make effective soldiers was something which had already been pioneered by Hindu rulers long before the Europeans.

Further, the ability to mobilize effectively across jAti-varNa lines was not necessarily imposed by kShatriya rulers top-down. It happened in a somewhat scale free-fashion over the country. The best example for this comes from the mobilization effected by the agriculturalist shUdra chiefs of kamma, reDDi and kApu jAti-s. They were able to create effective armies from agrarian shUdra-s and kohli-s, pastoralists (golla-s), forest tribes (kATTureDDi-s) and various broken up kShatriya groups and tribesmen. This army was raised and trained with a matter of 5 years and was able to effectively turn back the tide of the Jihad in parts of south India. This scale-free mobilization by the shUdra agriculturalists was not a new response to the Moslem presence. A closer analysis can trace its origins back to the system of the sAmanta-maNDala that emerged in the period of mAhAsAManta dominance prior to the Islamic onslaught. Thus, the sAmanta-maNDala system, far from being a form of feudalism that undid the Indians, provided them with an intrinsic robustness that allowed them to counter the Moslems once the top layers of the scale-free structure had been knocked out. The reason this worked was because the sAmanta-maNDala system encouraged scale-free development of armies at every level of state organization, thus creating a mechanism that selected for effective military talent long before a European had set foot on the subcontinent.

The way the sAmanta-maNDala system worked it fostered the development and management of military talent ground up from the local level all the way to the empire. The basic unit of Indian political organization, since at least the time of the Indo-Aryan unification of Indian polity, was the village with its agrarian-pastoralist economy and pa~nchAyata system of local self-government. This system was prone to attack by parasitic entities (described right from the days of the veda as taskara, kulu~ncha, va~nchaka etc). The defense against such parasites was organized at the village level and helped the emergence of militarily proficient agrarian-pastoralist groups (the kApu jAti in south India is an example of such). The nagara or the urban center on the contrary had a different economy that was supported by the channelizing of the produce from numerous grAma-s and also foreign trade. Controlling the channeling was the domain of the sAmanta; his success depended on the ability to keep the communication between grAma-s and between grAma-s and the nagara safe. Another key function for him was to provide backup for the grAma-s in the the defense against parasites. This process fostered the development of military management both at the rural and the urban level. A part of the process was the ability to safeguard the pa~nchAyata system from the stronger parasitic entities such as the AkrAnta-s or the AtatAyin-s who may prey upon villages that are in the domain of a given sAmanta. Hence, the sAmanta had to develop both political skills of negotiating with village strongmen (in south India represented by jAti-s like vELALar-s, gauNDar-s, reDDi and kamma) and military organization skills that allowed him to develop larger armies from that of villages. Thus, what we saw with the development of the sAmanta-maNDala was the emergence of niches for military manpower developers who could now decide various power equations. This went beyond the system of mercenary soldiers of the nanda period (an ancient feature of both Indian and Greek societies; both Indian and Greek mercenary soldiers were a big force in the Achaemenid armies), in that it was organized in a ground-up fashion and comprised of extended networks of local soldiers, who also had pastoralist/agriculturist secular functions. Thus, rather than inventing military manpower management, the English were merely drawing upon a much older system that had already been in place for more than millennium when they first started utilizing it. In fact this local management of military manpower did not escape the attention of the Mohammedans. The Deccani sultanates and the post-Akbar Mogols made heavy use of the traditional Hindu systems developed within the sAmanta-maNDala framework, and the rise of shivAjI himself can be traced back to such systems. After all, shivAjI’s ancestors were pastoralist pATil-s who organized military man power on a local scale to safe guard grAma-s and nagara-s (irrespective of their ultimate origin from hoysAla-s or others).

One might argue that the English introduced training while these armies of the sAmanta maNDala were irregulars. In our opinion even this is not entirely right. As Cooper observed the vIrakal-s which document the military actions of such local warriors already indicate the presence of a disciplined army. Now, another much neglected source can be brought to bear upon such this matter: in south India certain pastoralist/agriculturalist epics have been preserved in the Tamil and the Telugu languages that give insights into the military organization centered on the grAma in general. These epics include the tambikal kathai in Tamil (vELALar-s and gauNDar-s), the kATaMrAju kathalu (golla-s and mAdiga-s) and palanADu kathalu (kamma, reDDi etc), both in Telugu. These show that both the pastoralist and agriculturalist groups spent considerable time in raising and training armies for military expedition alongside their subsistence duties of farming and animal husbandry. These groups were not surprisingly the source of man power of several southern armies.The military training of local pastoralist armies, which was raw material for military power brokers, might go back a long way in Indian history: the mahAbhArata and the harivaMsha inform us that kR^iShNa devakIputra with the help of his foster father nanda raised an army of gopAla-s that he was able to use early in his career to subdue the hostile nAga chief kAliya on the banks of the yamuna. Later, he was able to bring this gopAla army to decide inter-yAdava conflicts by defeating the partisans of kaMsa, after kR^iShNa assassinated him. Finally, the gopAla army was lent to the kaurava-s as part of striking an even agreement in the military showdown at kurukShetra. We later see a similar gopAla army of the AbhIra-s (a pastoralist tribe in central India related to the golla-s of Andhra) playing a major role in the overthrow of the kShatrapa-s in western India.

 A vIrakal of a kApu warrior who fell fighting the turuShka-s

Uniform, formation, holding line and firing in rank
A plethora of western authors have sought to create the fable that certain military concepts such as uniform, fighting in formations or holding line and firing in rank are innovations of western infantry that the Indians were entirely unaware of until they received western training. Cooper brings home this misconception in his work by pointing to some of the ideas held by Wellesley. He had famously declared that the “Marathas were a nation of freebooters” based on their use of piNDArI-s (mahArATTI: peNDhARI). He also stated: “I think it is much to be doubted whether his [Sindhia's] power, or that of the Maratha nation, would not have been more formidable, at least to the British Government, if they had never had a European, as an infantry soldier in their service; and had carried on their operations, in the manner of the original Marathas, only by means of cavalry.” In essence he was articulating his view (internalized by most subsequent historians) that the native Indian armies were incapable of fighting infantry encounters in the manner in which the Europeans did, and if they did adopt such techniques they were rather useless at putting it to action. What we are not often told are Wellesley’s own actions, such as his purchasing up to 10,000 pINDari-s to work on his behalf and his letting them loose in karNATa and on the mahArATTa-s themselves. By the same token the English also characterized the native Indian armies as being undisciplined on grounds such as lack of uniform, ability to hold the line in the infantry when under fire or even having the concept of firing in rank. As an extension to their piNDarI style of warfare, even their ability to deploy in formations during military encounters was doubted! Indeed, influenced by such ideas, Sir Jadunath Sarkar in his military history that bAjIrao-I’s defeat of the Nizam at Palkhed was largely a consequence of his piNDArI tactics.

Cooper correctly realized that the mahArATTa were not entirely a cavalry force, nor was their dependence on piNDari-s a matter of pure choice, and that much of the above mis-characterization of the Hindu armies does not hold up when more carefully examined:
1) First, military uniform was not a unique premise of the Europeans. The evidence from the dattAjI mAlkare bakhar shows that shivAjI was already issuing standardized turbans and clothing to his enlisted troops and this seems to have continued at least till bAjIrao. One can ultimately trace the presence of military uniform in the subcontinent back to the arthashAstra from the mauryan period. Thus, it cannot be considered as being inspired by Europeans.

2) The terrain of bhArata and its general unsuitability for breeding high quality horses resulted in an emphasis on infantry since the earliest times. However, given their Aryan heritage, the Hindu rAjan-s greatly regarded the horse and always maintained a reasonable body of cavalry. The Hindu infantry placed considerable emphasis on the long-bow which proved rather effective against the Macedonian sarissa-armed infantry that has been often cited as a predecessor of the “Western” infantry style of warfare. In fact, Alexander and Ptolemaios had personally tasted the cloth yard shaft fired from the Hindu longbow, which essentially ended the former’s ambitions for the world empire. This culture of using the long-bow had already inculcated in the Hindus the precursor to the principle of fire by ranks – indeed Indian texts have long described the constant showers of arrows maintained by different kinds of archers in large scale combats. This mode of attack had been rather effective through the middle ages even against the Mohammedan marauders. We know from the depictions in Vijayanagara that this technique was transferred to matchlocks [Footnote 2]. By the time of last Hindu empire, that of the marATha-s, this infantry tactic was already in place. From the marAtha sources and reconstructing the events from the account of the French spy Francois Martin we see that a preliminary form of firing by rank was probably used by the marATha-s during shivAjI’s massive attack on Gingee. The Frenchman’s account indicates that the marATha-s maintained a continuous small arms fire along with heavy artillery fire which was heard as far as Pondicherry. There after we again see evidence for firing by rank in shaMbhAjI’s attack on the Portuguese army. Cooper points out that firing by rank had independently been deployed in the 1500s by the Japanese samurai tyrant Oda Nobunaga, so there is no reason to believe it originated with the Europeans. Non-holding of line and fire from behind the tree line was another Hindu tactic that was transferred from archers to the musketeers. The marATha-s used this effectively against the British in the battle of Aligarh, where they killed several English officers by shooting them from behind the treeline with some of the best long barreled flintlocks of the age. Another point which Cooper notes is that the Maratha-s used the column formation before any possible European inspiration. Indeed, the example cited by Cooper is that of bAjirao-I deploying the column against tryaMbakrao dAbhADe – as a result tryaMbak was shot and killed as he did not expect a heavy thrust right into his ranks. This tactic of bAjIrao points to his military versatility – he verily appears to have deployed a range of tactics that are previously encountered widely dispersed in space and time. The column itself had a long history in India and it is not impossible that bAjirao was well aware of this: In the great bhArata war the bharadvAja hero droNa deploys the kuru forces led by karNa, ashvatthAman and shalya in a column (the sUchImukha-vyUha) to attack the pANDu-s on the 14th day. The Indo-Aryan military manuals mention the sUchImukha turning into a sarvatobhadra-vyUha when under attack by the ratha-s and ashva-s – thus, the column becoming a square to face cavalry is an old concept that can hardly be considered to be of French origin.

3) Right from shivAjI’s time, the marATha-s always used an elaborate combination of tactics involving both cavalry and infantry divisions. The cavalry aspect of their warfare was a direct descendent of the Hindu response to the large mobile Turkic cavalries that became a part of Indian warfare with the Mohammedan invasions. The marATha-s began their own program of horse breeding in the bhIma and godAvarI valleys (bhiMthaDi and ga~NgthaDi breeds) to make up for the shortfalls with respect to the Mohammedans. But the marATha army, like other Hindu armies before them, was never entirely cavalry. Often the tactic was to launch an initial cavalry attack to force the enemy to retreat. If the enemy was in the retreat mode, only then they deployed their infantry in full force along and with their artillery, which Wellesley himself admitted as being powerful. This mode we know was used effectively by shivAjI’s commanders, his half-brother Anandrao and senApati haMbirrao mohite. Alternatively, they used infantry in rough terrain – e.g., as in the battle of Wai.The turning point in the history of India was the battle of Panipat where the marATha-s lost some of their best commanding officers along with a significant part of their army: “Two pearls have been dissolved, 27 gold coins have been lost and of the silver and copper the total cannot be counted”. Despite having some of the best guns in the world, which were indeed inspired by French artillery designs acquired via Monsieur de Bussy, the tactical errors cost the marATha-s dearly in this battle along with some overall strategic failures in course of the North India campaign. This loss, coupled with the serious monetary setback stemming from it prevented the marATha-s from ever fielding a full-fledged divisions on a large scale thereafter. As result, most marATha generals fell back on the tactic that could bring a degree of success without too much effort, namely the irregular cavalry. Only mahADjI shinde raised a formidable rounded force again, the effects of which were widely felt by his many adversaries, and the inspiration it provided continued to hold good till the terminal rounds of the Anglo-mArATha wars and even the war of independence of 1857 CE. Nevertheless, the loss at Panipat on the whole seriously affected the marATha military system especially when coupled with the early deaths of competent leaders like the two mAdhavarao-s. What field marshal Wellesley faced was not the marATha army in its best possible shape and yet the reality was that the battle for India was decided by a whisker in the Anglo-Maratha wars of 1803. The English characterization of the marATha-s as undisciplined warriors emerges from several distinct causes, chief of which are:
i) The marATha regular infantry units of several houses were greatly depleted when they went into the second Anglo-Maratha war, so they had to make most of their light cavalry and speed to counter the English.

ii) The mArATha tactics were interpreted in a prejudicial manner by the English writers because it showed the English performance in very poor light. One case is the battle of Aligarh where the marATha-s did not hold the line to fire by rank on purpose because they realized that a much better strategy, given the undermining of their position by the subversive action of their European officers, was to shoot from behind the treeline. This way they took a heavier toll on the English ranks, even as the Americans had done in their revolutionary war. As Cooper points out, the use of this tactic by the Americans is praised largely because they emerged ultimately victorious, whereas the mArATha-s were branded as being undisciplined and not capable of fighting openly.

iii) In several cases, the Indian forces found it prudent to take cover when under fire rather than hold line for no apparent gain – they also often lay on the ground and used their backpack to deflect fire from hand-held guns. This way they preserved their men to fight another day. The sheer frustration caused by this to the English led them to denigrate the marATha-s. However, it should be noted that Wellesley himself copied this strategy when faced with the heavy fire from the marATha-s in the battle of Argaum. The English now spun this around and interpreted it as the military genius of their field marshal. In the battle of Kharda, where savAi mAdhavarao’s united marATha army fought the Nizam, the English realized that they stood no chance in saving the Nizam against the superior marATha artillery and infantry. So John Shore hastily retreated to save as many English assets as he could even as the Nizam was being thrashed. This was not described as an ignominious retreat of the English troops and inability to hold line, but as a stroke of strategic genius. Indeed, the battle of Kharda is a good case to show what the united marATha army was just 8 years before the second Anglo-Maratha war and how the English really would have not stood a chance had they faced such an army.

Leukospheric identity, vaNijanIti and the perimeter strategy
If the marATha-s were really not inferior in military technique and technology then why did India get ultimately colonized by the leukosphere? We believe the answer lies much more in the realm of the grand geopolitical strategy than anything else:

1)The marATha-s were in a sense meritocratic employers who employed Hindus, Moslems and Europeans largely based on performance and ability. In this sense they are similar to many Indian corporate employers and Indian academics with their own groups in Euro-American academia. The truth is the Indians were not ethnocentric enough, whereas the Europeans were just beginning to evolve a sense of white identity. The Indians did not realize this point when they employed European officers. In a sense, the Hindus were acting similar to the Iranians who employed a large number of Greeks even as they fought the Greeks themselves in the Greco-Persian wars. Similarly, Hindu leaders were by nature genuinely secular when it came to secular issues. As the army was being seen as a secular affair, it did not preclude them from employing Moslems and Christians – they simply did not give much thought to the ultimate consequences of such actions. Hence, the Indian armies were exposed to the grave danger of subversion from within. While a few white soldiers, like the American colonel Boyd, were faithful to their Hindu employers, most others were untrustworthy – both French and English soldiers in the marATha easily either went over to the English ranks or simply failed to perform. This subversion seriously compromised the marATha-s as seen in the battles of Aligarh and Assaye. So the marATha “equal opportunity” military hiring, in particular the inability to understand the leukospheric identity, completely backfired on them. This was entirely unlike the Greco-Persian wars were the Greek soldiers on the Iranian side remained largely faithful to their employers. This point it is important because, unlike the heathen Greeks or Iranians with an innate meritocratic outlook, similar to that of the marATha-s, the leukosphere was developing its identity under the framework of Christianity. So the white soldiers saw themselves as fellow European Christians who could cooperate against the dark skinned heathens. It needs to be emphasized again it that the Hindu shortfall in this regard was not due to the lack of Hindu identity as the leukosphere would like to claim, but simply due to the Hindu failure to properly read the developing identity of the “other” in their payroll.

2) The English are a nation of traders! Indeed, a key ability of the English was to purchase loyalties for money. When armies get professional they lack a sense of identity – verily the English realized this well and exploited it to their advantage by buying off soldiers, often on the eve of major conflicts. Central to the English ability to purchase was their controlling the sea lanes and thus the global trade system. At the same time they worked to systematically undermine Indian manufacturing. Thus, they could mobilize the profits from their colonial ventures elsewhere to support the Indian project that was being sold as a very rewarding investment.

3) The above point leads naturally to the most important issue – by controlling the trade routes by sea the English could develop a perimeter strategy in which they could hem the Hindus on all sides using their control of key coastal centers – Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Thus, the marATha-s came to be naturally surrounded by the English, who could indefinitely keep themselves supplied by sea, even as they cut off the Hindu communication lines inside the country. They completed the perimeter strategy by the third Anglo-Maratha war and this more or less doomed the first war of independence in 1857.

In reality few Hindus realize that all these issues continue to be central to the geopolitical strategy pursued by the leukosphere vis-a-vis the Hindus. They have pursued the perimeter strategy in long distance to create inimical states around modern India – Taliban, TSP, TSB, communist Nepal, a subverted shrIlankA, chIna occupied Tibet, Islamist Maldives and Christianized Northeastern states. Importantly, even today most Hindus simply do not realize the way the white boys club operates and they foolishly keep buying all the nonsense they dish out in the name of professionalism, liberalism, democracy and modernism. Finally, with the iron grip on the world trade and monetary systems they continue to mobilize resources for projects in the subcontinent. However, we live in interesting times and might have opportunities if only we knew how to see them.

~*~*~*~*~
Footnote 1: The west calls upon India not to retaliate against insults to its sovereignty or national security, but rather show restrain when assaulted by Mohammedan terrorists. Recently, US senator Mark Warner, commended Manmohan Singh and India’s “restraint in the face of continuing terrorist attacks as nothing short of remarkable and keeping with the best traditions of India.” Thus, softness is still encouraged by the West and foisted upon Indians as a part of its continuing colonial venture in the subcontinent. We may also speculate that this softness cultivated MK Gandhi’s world view. Perhaps, its most bizarre manifestation was in connection to the peculiar sexuality MK Gandhi is noted to have exhibited later in his life – he wanted to appear as a female mother figure – a state of non-threatening effeminacy. We may infer from his writings that this directly stemmed from his misguided understanding of the Hindu tradition of ahimsa, which in turn was perhaps an internalization of the soft image imposed on the Hindus by the English conquerors.

Footnote 2: A version of such an archaic Vijayanagaran infantry gun was present in the collection of arms of our coethnic AdinArAyaNa who was the commander of the thoNDaimAn of the drAviDa country in the 1700s.

The paper by Reich et al presents the following model which is best summarized by the admixture graph they obtain (below).

The interpretation of this graph when combined with other data may be done thus:
In Africa the deepest branch of humanity are the Bushmen who broke off from the rest of us around 110-150,000 years bp. After a long history in Africa the amounting to a several tens of thousands of years a single clade of humans left Africa via the West Asia. The human clade that left Africa first encountered the Neanderthals, probably in the West Asia. The mating between the Neanderthals and the Homo sapiens just coming out of Africa resulted in an mixed population in which about 1.3 % of the genome was contributed by the Neanderthals. Given that Australia and Papua New Guinea (greater Australia) was already peopled by around 50, 000 years bp. This migration out of Africa was certainly before that time ~50-60,000 yrs bp. The last Neanderthals are supposed to have lived between 20-30,000 years bp, suggesting that at least in some parts of Eurasia the Neanderthals and H.sapiens were interacting for several thousand years. This might explain the Neanderthaloid features in some early European H.sapiens populations. The out of Africa clade broke up into three major branches: The exact order of bifurcation between the three branches is currently ambiguous; hence, the three are collapsed to a trifurcation in the graph. The first branch appears to have spread widely through Asia and eventually contributed to the genetic heritage of the original humans of Papua New Guinea and finally Australia (together greater Australia) before 50,000 years BP. This wave appears to have mated with the archaic sister group of the Neanderthals, the Denisovans, in South-East Asia and up to 7% of their genome originally came to be Denisovan in origin. This suggests that the aborigines and Papuans are one surviving group of humans outside Africa for which we are certain of substantial archaic Homo admixture, well over the Neanderthal levels. The second branch is currently represented in an apparently pristine form by the stoneage Onge tribe of the Andamans – a negrito group. This branch clearly shows no Denisovan admixture. This branch spread over the the Malay archipelago and became the second wave to advance towards greater Australia. This wave diluted the Denisovan-mixed first wave such that they came to be about 4% Denisovan today. In light of the Denisovan admixture it is interesting to note that certain archaic features are seen in the fossil Australians from Kow Swamp. The 3rd branch gave rise to the classical Eurasians. Around 35,000 years BP this branch split up into Eastern Eurasians (Asians) and Western Eurasians. The Asians pushed eastwards spreading through Asia and finally advanced towards South-East Asia. Here in Philippines they encountered a relict of the first branch which had mated with the Denisovans but had no admixture with the second wave (ie. the branch represented by the Onge). Their mating resulted in the formation of Negrito tribes represented by the Mamanwa. This admixture between the early Asians (wave 3) and the first wave with Denisovan admixture also seems to have contributed to the Manobo tribe of the Philippines. In Malaysia the Asians encountered the members of the second wave (Onge-like wave) and mated with them resulting in the negrito tribes like the Jehai. They continued moving east contributing to different degrees to various populations of the islands of proximal Oceania except the Papuans and Australians. In mainland Asia the Asians split up into northern southern Asians with a branch of northern Asians moving into the Beringia and from there eventually into the Americas to give rise to the Paleoamericans.

So what about India in this picture?
We may go back to the earlier work by Reich et al in which they had shown that the Onge and the “Ancestral South Indians” (ASI), more correctly proto-Indians, form a clade to the exclusion of others (See above). The split between the ASI and the Onge predates the admixture of the ASI and the ancestral north Indians (ANI). Like the Onge, the Indians show no hint of Denisovan ancestory. This gives us the important clue that the second branch of the above description moved into India to contribute to the genetic heritage of the ASI. So the common genetic heritage between the Indians and the Aborigines comes from the shared connection of the second wave. One question arises: Did the second branch, which gave rise to the ancestors of the ASI and the Onge reach greater Australia and mate with Denisovan-mixed first branch or did that mating happen somewhere else? First, there is no evidence for Denisovan admixture in India, the Andamans or the Malaysian Jehai, all of whom share a common ancestry in the form of the second branch. All Denisovan admixture is only seen in populations eastwards from Borneo. Next, there is no evidence for the second branch having mixed with the Denisovan-mixed first branch in the Philippines. Thus it is clear that the first and the second branch did not mix before the first branch had mixed with the Denisovans. So clearly the admixture happened only between a sub-population of the first and the incoming wave of the second branch eastwards of Borneo. This also suggests that the second branch took a route into South-East Asia that was different from the first and the Denisovans before them. In all likelihood it was via Malaysia and Southern islands in the Indonesian chain rather than via the northern route including Philippines, which is likely to have been the path of the Denisovans and the first branch. All the currently sampled Greater Australian populations show the second branch admixture; hence, it is clear that the first and second branch were already mixed before they fanned into greater Australia. Based on this we might tentatively conclude that the first branch was reached by the second branch somewhere East of Borneo and South of Philippines resulting in the admixture that gave rise to the proto-Australian. Thus, in this model the proto-Australians themselves already had a significant second branch genetic heritage, one shared with the proto-Indians. This makes some sense in light of the so called “Proto-Australoid” morphological features reported in several Indian tribes in physical anthropology. This is also supported by the results of the K-means clustering performed using the genetic variation data derived from the Aborigine genome work.

The next question of note is what happened to the ASI in India – did they remain isolated till the “ancestral North Indians (ANI)” moved in or did they mix with any other group? Both the above K-means clustering from the Aborigine genome work and the PCA analysis from Reich et al’s earlier work suggest that in part the ASI might have undergone admixture at different points with Asians. One of these might have been a fairly early admixture with a southern branch of Asians moving in via Northern and central India, through eastern India into Burma and Indochina. Asians also extensively mixed with the second branch and the first branch or a mixture of the two throughout South-East Asia but probably did not reach Australia itself.

In India, finally there was the influx of the western Eurasians or the ANI. The main point showed by Reich et al was that the ANI form a clade with the Europeans to the exclusion of the Caucasian Adygei. This is likely to approximately correspond to the origin of the ancestral IE people. This can be conservatively estimated as around 8000-6000 years bp. The biggest admixture between the ANI and the ASI can be conservatively estimated at 4000-3000 years bp. This suggests the major western Eurasian wave into India is most likely the famous Aryan Invasion. Most populations of greater India have an admixture of this wave along with underlying proto-Indian and in several cases Asian branches. The Indians are somewhat unique in combining the distinct genetic heritages of more than one branch of the early out of Africa radiation in their genome. Of course the degree of these inheritances shows a clear correlation with varNa and tribal affinity – moving from brAhmaNa to tribe via shUdra-s and avarNa-s there is a decrease in western Eurasian contribution and increase in proto-India and Asian contributions.

The distribution of the Denisovans inferred from the admixture data is rather puzzling because there is no sign of them in the Asians, though they were first identified in Siberia from 41,000 year old site. One possibility is that they became extinct before the Asians ever came into their current zone. But one must bear in mind that the history of the Asians is complex in itself – the early Asians appear to have been washed out by an explosive expansion of the more Sinitic variety of Asian. This is suggested by the Y-chromosome haplotype D which is seen in Tibetans, Japanese (including Ainu) and several non-Onge Andamanese. The D haplotype bearing population needs to been investigated more closely, and might represent a component of the old Asian wave. But the lack of Denisovan DNA in Japan, all studied Chinese groups, non-Onge Andamanese and South-East Asian populations suggests that they were indeed gone even before these early Asians arrived. However, to get to the islands of Philippines and the Indonesian chain the Denisovans should have once been in Asia. It remains unclear as to what led to their extinction. Greater India (including Shri Lanka) has been a land where archaisms survive rather long. One remarkable case is the survival of stone age technology of microlith manufacture among tribes in Madhya Pradesh and the Veddas of Lanka. Most remarkably these MP tribesman were making microliths resembling those from the Neolithic from porcelain electrical insulators in the 1900s! Indeed, in a similar vein even archaic Homo species appears to have persisted rather long in India if we go by their tools – there are not fossils other than the famous Narmada cranium. In light of this one wonders if there was a distinct archaic Homo species that persisted in India to mix with the ASI. Plumbing the ASI genome might be interesting in this regard.

The prelude
tvam Adau vikramAdityaH sR^iShTo .abhUH svAMshato mayA |
mlechCha-rUpAvatIrNAnAm asurANAM prashAntaye || (bhaTTa somadeva in the vetAla pa~nchaviMshati)

I generated you vikramAditya as a part of my own self to silence the asura-s in the form of the mlechCha-s

Ekanetra remarked that there was nothing really new to state in geopolitics: either we had prognosticated everything or the events were too subtle for our fragile brains to comprehend. While we were sort of fumbling with connecting the geopolitical dots, ST interrupted us and got me talking about some other issue. Since we felt a certain continuity in having provided a modern explanation for a problem that our great atharvan ancestors first discovered (AV-vulgate 7.116), we waxed on this for a while, losing sight of the geopolitical exposition. Finally, we got around to discussing it with some renewed focus with ST joining – in a sense we spent a while getting her up to speed so the repetition did not sound boring. The central question that concerned us was whether Anglospheric colonialism, i.e. control over the Hindu territory and the Hindu sphere of influence has really ended. On these pages we have repeatedly presented the answer as being a resounding NO.

Erasure and fragmentation of the sacred geography in the Hindu consciousness
As long as mlechCha-s operate with impunity in TSP, a former portion the Hindu sacred geography, the colonialism cannot be said to have been completely overcome. It should be reiterated, because many among the Hindu elite do not understand it; the very creation of TSP and the subsequent abundant patronage offered to it by the mlechCha-s was to ensure that the colonial venture in the subcontinent does not end at all. The Hindus have also internalized some subtle historical propaganda in this regard: The mlechCha-s have been active in creating an alternative history for the sImAnta pradesha-s. Key to their patently false historical narrative is to push the delegitimization of Hindu presence in this lands back in history by claiming the that gandhAra and bAhlika were never a part of the Hindu sphere. Instead, they are handed over to the Iranians and it is presented as though the Greeks legitimately acquired these territories by conquering the Iranians. The Iranian Kushana-s are presented as being cultural derivatives of Hellenism rather than Hindu rulers. Since, the mlechCha-s have also created a false narrative (which is central to their own identity) that they are the true successors of the yavana-s they hold that these sImanta-pradesha-s are actually a natural sphere of their activity. They might even go as far as claiming that they actually belonged to them as as they are the successors of the yavana-s.

The realization
In past the Hindu-s close to the sImAnta-pradesha-s were concerned about the intrusion of barbarous peoples. For example, in the kathA-sarit-sAgara of the great kavI somadeva, viShNu tells the deva-s that he has caused the emergence of gupta kings like vikramAditya and trivikramasena, strengthened them by his power, to clear the land of the bhArata-s irruptions of the dreadful mlechCha-s (i.e. hUNa-s and Iranian invaders). The consciousness of the need to attack garjanapura (Ghazna) and drive out the Arabs and Turks was also not lacking. Unlike the claims of several modern historical narratives, this was not lost on Hindu kings over a long phase of history nearly lasting 7 centuries. That was not restricted to the kings closer to the sImAnta. The great chAlukya vikramAditya-04 from the south sent a force to attack the turuShka-s from garjanaka and drive them off the Panjab. Much latter the mahArATTa-s from the south also set their objectives as taking back the land of gandhAra.

But all this is kept largely concealed from the larger Hindu consciousness. The journey of our own realization dawned many many moons ago around the first time we met Ekanetra. After a long journey towards the senAprastha we met them and we got talking about medieval history as was customary for us. Ekanetra introduced me to the events concerning the invasions of the accursed Sebüktegin and Mahmud of garjanaka. We were touched deep within by the pitched battles fought against the turuShka-s in the valiant though unsuccessful defense of the borders of bhArata by jayapAla, AnandapAla and trilochanapAla the last Hindu kings of Afghanistan and the western Panjab. Few months later we encountered the material concerning the invasions of Mahmud in our history textbook. The narrative it conveyed completely obscured not only the struggle of the shAhIya-s but also made it appear that the Hindus were truly imbeciles who verily “scattered like atoms before Amir Mahmud’s assaults”. It gave the impression that the Hindus did not even know to ply a sword or bow even as the turuShka romped all over uttarApatha and madhyadesha. Indeed, the Hindu student perusing the textbook was left imprinted with a sense of deep shame – the textbook might have as well have been one from TSP, glorifying the hero of that hellhole. It was then that it struck us that something was wrong here. The textbook was in essence forcing down our throats a view that had been constructed by certain early English historians of India who informed us that the pusillanimous kings of madhyadesha had fled in terror at the approach of Mahmud. In particular, we were struck by the statement of the English historian Smith that the chandrAtreya monarch of jejAkabhukti retreated in “craven flight” and “capitulated without fighting” when faced with the turuShka assault. This really rubbed the salt in – were our rAjan-s so weak that they were not even capable defending the turuShka rampage? – much like our team in cricket.We wondered if the predecessor of rAnI durgAvatI, who valiantly led her troops against the jihad of the Mogol tyrant Akbar, would flee in so cowardly a manner, especially when their dynasty was at the height of its power. Our textbooks and lecturers were not the ones to answer such questions – in fact they were even unaware of the existence of the paramAra-s or the chandrAtreya-s!

Yet, we noticed that the record of English writers closer to the cataclysmic events leading to their own conquest of bhArata conveyed a rather different picture of the Hindu military capabilities in defending their land. For example we may quote the major W. Thorn on the wars fought against the mahArATTa armies in 1803 (as supplied by the historian Randolf Cooper):

“Hitherto the most incorrect notions have prevailed in this country respecting Indian warfare; in consequence of which misconceptions, the hardest battles have been undervalued, and the most splendid victories have been thrown into shade. Thus the services of our armies in that region suffer in the general estimation, and the exemplary conduct of individuals loses its reward, owing to the distance of the scene, and the comparatively little interest which it occupies in the public mind. The mass of the people are also uninformed in regard to the changes that have taken place among the warlike tribes of India, through the introduction of European tactics and French discipline; which, combined with their natural courage, often bordering on frenzy, and their numerical superiority, has rendered our conflicts with them sanguinary in the extreme … their infantry stood till the English bayonets touched their breasts; the artillery men, with similar firmness, served their guns without receding an inch; and when they could no longer fire, they made use of their tollwars [footnote 1], till they fell under the carriage wheels of their cannon; while the cavalry, in the same spirit, charged up to the very muzzles of our firelocks.”

While Thorn not unexpectedly tries to attribute the military tactics of the Indian armies to European ideas [Footnote 2] he yet concedes their natural courage and their ability to hold the line. Reading such accounts we wondered how the natural courage of the Hindus suddenly materialized in only in the 1800s? How come it was not there when Mahmud of garjanaka was launching his invasions on bhArata – when our kings are said to have fled headlong.

To understand this better in the year of “great quiz” we started collecting data, which was in those days not easily accessible, regarding the Jihads waged by the Mohammedans on the Hindus. Having collected all data we could about these encounters, we visualized the emerging picture (above). It became clear that the Army of Islam episodically surged with its characteristic ferocity, followed by troughs in which the Jihad turned flaccid. These troughs followed periods of intense fighting in which a clear Hindu response was seen after a tipping point of Islamic insults had been reached – the Indian elephant had responded. In the first two centuries the Hindu armies completely neutralized any attempts of the Arab-led Jihad to move beyond the successes of ibn Qasim. The next two surges were led by different Turkic tribes which had a superior military technique to Arabs – even in this case, despite the constraints in terms of supply of horses against the Turkic cavalry force, a comparable pattern of Hindu response could be discerned. These studies lead us along two distinct paths – 1) the hypothesis of the religion of peace being a “memetic prion” that interacted to amplify certain genetic traits in the population (e.g. monoamine oxidase genetic variants) leading to a self-sustaining cycle to generate more Ghazis for the Jihad. This line of reasoning is only now receiving support from genetic associations studies and provides the explanation of what Huntington called “violence within and without” and explains how the Jihad kept on going despite the Hindu resistance. 2) It brought home the enormity of the Hindu struggle against Jihad which had been glossed over by modern historians due to various influences ranging from the English imposed narratives to the newly-wrought obfuscations of Marxist ideology and its manifestations. It was in this context that we began to appreciate the need for proper Hindu narratives of their heroes who placed a wall steel against the waves of the religion of peace.

-o-o-O-o-o-
In 962 CE the Turkic amir Alptegin decided to wage holy war on the Hindus. The shAhIya-s taking up the challenge, pushed back the Mohammedan assault, and took the fort of garjanaka. However, he sent a force to take it back in 963 CE. With this the opening round in the second great Mohammedan surge towards India was initiated. Alptegin purchased Sebuktegin from a pious Arab slave dealer Nasir Haji, just as Alptegin himself had be bought by the Samanid sultan. In 965 Sebuktegin was sent against the Hindus. The Hindu army intercepted the invading army of Islam near Lamghan in Afghanistan and a fierce encounter took place and the Moslems were repulsed. Over the next 8 years there were marauding Mohammedan raids to seize women and boys. In 973 CE the jayapAla the shAhIya king realized the great danger of the Jihad powerfully retaliated by a raid on garjanaka; however he failed to take Ghazni, though his effort put the Moslems on the backfoot. He also communicated with the vijayan ruler of Khotan, pagan Turkic chiefs and the Mongol khan of the Khitan kingdom to form a large network against the army of Islam. In succeeding years, Alptegin died and there was a contest between his son Ishaq, their homosexual lovers such as Pirai and the pagan Turks like Bilgetegin and Toghan. At the end of this contest it was Sebuktegin who was successful and became Amir of Ghazna. He immediately prosecuted the jihad with greatest vigor by invading and seizing Kandahar in 977 CE. Not put off by this jayapAla immediately assembled his army and launched an attack on the Mohammedans. There was a fierce encounter near Jalalabad and the Mohammedan army was forced to retreat. Over the next few years there continued to be raids but on the whole Sebuktegin had been checked. But in 991 CE Sebuktegin had assembled a massive Ghazi force to launch a full-fledged assault on the shAhIya-s. It was at this point that jayapAla realized he might not be able to hold his own against powerful Islamic advance. He called for help to the pratihAra, and the mahAsAmanta-s, the ChAhamAna-s and the chandrAtreya-s. The Hindus put up a united front but the results were mixed as they lost Lamghan to the Mohammedans. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that the rAjpUt coalition managed to prevent further advance of the Mohammedans in the Hindu frontier by checking their armies near the krumu river [Footnote 3]. This series of events showed that the chandrAtreya-s were willing to take forward action and were not wimps in standing up to the Islamic terror. Indeed this action kept the Moslem out of the way for 10 years.

But the Hindu-s were soon to be put to more severe tests soon after Mahmud, the son of Sebuktegin, came to power between 998 and 999 and inaugurated his reign with a jihad against the Shia Assassins of Multan. His jihads against the Hindus began in 1001 – the very first of which eliminated the shAhIya king jayapAla. The coming 25 years that followed the Hindus were subject to 18 devastating invasions of the army of Islam. The only rAjA-s who remained standing against the ghazi whirlwind were vidyAdhara-deva the chandrAtreya, bhoja-deva the paramAra and saMgrAmarAja of Kashmir. The first casualty of the struggle was shAhIya dynasty – four generations of shAhIya fought with utmost valor in the defense of the Hindu dharma. The very first assault of Mahmud in 1001 CE overwhelmed the Hindu defenses of the Khyber pass and a huge encounter with the old rAjA jayapAla army took place just north of puShpapura (modern Peshawar in the terrorist state). The Hindus in an inferior strategic position, with the Moslems commanding the heights, were routed and their rAjA was taken prisoner to be sold as a slave in the market of Ghazni. But before this ignominy could overtaken him jayapAla committed suicide. With this the march of the army of Islam into the Panjab was initiated. Despite his father’s fall the brave AnandapAla continued the struggle by taking the help of the chandrAtreya-s and pratIhAra to defend the rest of the Panjab. Seeing the threat of the Sunni Mahmud, even the Shia Assassin Abdul Dawood joined hands with along side AnandapAla’s mahAsAmanta vijayarAya of the sindhu (capital at modern Uch in TSP) to outflank Mahmud. But they were instead outflanked by the rapidly moving cavalry of Mahmud and the move of AnandapAla to send a force to pincer grip Mahmud failed. There was intense fighting near puShpapura and then south of mUlasthAna. In the latter battle the Mohammedan chroniclers themselves admit that they were repeatedly repulsed by vijayarAya. But Mahmud pressed on and eventually broke through his defenses and slaughtered and plundered the Hindus ending the last Hindu principality of the sindhu. Then he attacked the Shias and forcibly converted Dawood to Sunnism also destroying the famous saura temple in mUlasthAna. However, AnandapAla’s troops ambushed Mahmud while crossing the swollen sindhu and relieved him of his plunder. Then Mahmud proceeded on a central Asian campaign to attack Ilek Khan of Kashgar, and deal with Anandapala subsequently. In 1008 CE having finished his adversaries in the north the Mahmud launched a major invasion into the Panjab descending via the Khyber pass. AnandapAla and his son trilochanapAla along with chandrAtreya, pratIhAra and other rAjpUt and Kashmirian troops advanced to meet him – it was clear that despite their internal rivalry the rAjA-s realized the existential danger to the land of the Arya-s, dharma and their very way of life from Islam and put together an alliance.

The Hindu alliance came face to face with the army of Islam north of Attock in the line between puShpapura and udbhANDapura (Hund in TSP) in the biting cold of the winter of 1008 CE. There was skirmishing for 40 days in course of which Mahmud realized that he did not stand a chance of making frontal assault on the Hindu army. He decided to take up a fortified camp on a commanding height and wait out to see if the winter and the possible ensuing break in the supply lines of the Hindus made them falter. He soon realized that his advantage of height might allow him to launch a mounted archer attack followed by a cavalry charge to break the Hindus. He first probed in an early morning attack by sending a mobile mounted cavalry to shower arrows on the Hindu ranks and return. The Hindus counter-attacked with their long bow archers and having repulsed the mobile cavalry mounted a fierce cavalry attack followed by a massed infantry attack. The Hindu cavalry division broke through the Moslem defenses and fell upon the Mahmud’s center killing several thousand ghazis yearning for their boys and girls in Allah’s paradise. Over the day a bloody battle raged and the Hindus seemed to be gaining the upper hand until a Mahmud pressed an intense attack close to darkness with burning arrows. AnandapAla who was leading from an elephant ordered a retreat to regroup but came under fire himself from sharpshooters and the tactical retreat turned disorderly. Mahmud sensed this immediately and pressed a massive cavalry charge this broke the Hindu order completely and they squandered what was turning to be a near victory. The Moslem charge left several thousand Hindus dead and the rest retreated in utter disarray. The defeat resulted in complete smashing of the Panjab with bhImanagara (Nagarkot) and lavapura (Lahore) fell in quick succession and AnandapAla died a couple of years later. But trilochanapAla moving to the fort of nandana in the Salt Range along with his son bhImapAla continued the struggle with great courage. In 1013 CE bhImapAla fought bravely trying to defend the Marigala pass (near Rawalpindi in modern TSP). In this intense encounter bhImapAla put down a Moslem commander Mohammed ibn Ibrahim after engaging him in a hand-to hand combat with his sword, and turned back their army [hence even the Moslems acknowledge him as niDar bhIm], but Mahmud subsequently returned with a superior force and overwhelmed him . After much fighting for an year the fort of nandana was undermined by Mahmud’s siege moles and it was taken with much slaughter. In the mean time trilochanapAla took the aid of the Kashmirian saMgrAmarAja and advanced to fight Mahmud. This time bolstered by the Kashmirian troops the shAhIya laid a trap for the Moslems after they crossed the Jhelum in 1014 CE. As they were trying to take the Toshmaidan pass the Hindu long bow archers showered arrows on the Moslems from the height. When the Moslem ranks were disarrayed by the attack, aided by the Kashmirian cavalry, trilochanapAla engaged them in short cavalry encounters followed by feigned retreats into the hills, followed by a major thrust which completed routed Mahmud’s army. Knowing that he could be taken Mahmud hastily retreated to Ghazna.

With breaching of the bulwark of the shAhIya-s in the sImAnta-pradesha-s Mahmud took aim at the civilizational centers in bhArata to fulfill the aims of the religion of peace. Mahmud who had been defeated by the rAjA of Kashmir, took three years to recoup and build up his army for a big jihad. The aged pratIhAra king rAjyapAla who had suffered heavy losses in the campaign of the Hindu coalition to shore up AnandapAla was not willing to risk another such effort when trilochanapAla and bhImapAla sought his aid to fight back. He feared that in rejoining a new coalition against the Moslems he might bear the brunt of the attack and retreated from his main cities of sthAnIshvara and kanyAkubja hoping to lure Mahmud deep into his kingdom. But his plan utterly failed, as seeing this moment of weakness among the Hindus, Mahmud struck powerfully savaging the old centers of Hindu sacred geography in deep invasion into madhyadesha: First sthAnIshvara, the city of the great emperor harSha whose court was embellished by some of the greatest Sanskrit wordsmiths, then mathura the holy land of the vaiShNava-s, pAshupatha-s and kaumAra-s and finally kanyAkubja the hoary city of the kaushika-s were reduced to smoldering ruins in the aftermath of this whirlwind attack of 1018. The only Hindu ruler who advanced the against Mohammedan surge was the chandrAtreya monarch vidyAdhara-deva. Based on Katare’s analysis of the jayavarman inscription it is clear that vidyAdhara’s attack on the Moslem army forced them retreat from bhAratavarSha. It is a small wonder that the Mohammedan historians are silent on the matter that is mentioned in the above inscription:
nira~Nkusha-yashaH prasaraH sa jaj~ne vidyAdharo dharaNI-dhAraNa-vIrabAhuH |
hammIra-vIram-uru-vAri-nidhiM pramathya pR^ithivi-bhR^itA karaTikaH …]
The brave vidyAdhara is mentioned as having churned the ocean of the amir’s army in battle. He likely encountered the Mohammedan army East of Gwalior in a sanguinary battle and forced them to retreat. A depiction of this battle in Khajuraho shows the crushing of Islamic warriors under feet of chandrAtreya war elephants. Infuriated by rajyapAla-s inefficient vidyAdhara dispatched his mahAsAmanta arjuna to depose rAjyapAla and take over the territory – rAjyapAla, who showed no intention to fight the Moslems, instead tried to fight arjuna and was killed by arrow in the encounter – a sad end to the pratIhAra power which had on early occasions manfully stood against the army of Islam in the defense of India. Now vidyAdhara gave aid to trilochanapAla and bhImapAla, and sent them supplies to withstand Mahmud and began organizing a large force for the defense of bhArata. In 1019 with the aim of annihilating the shAhIya-s and the wreaking vengeance on vidyAdhara for his actions Mahmud returned with much fury. The Mohammedan chroniclers mention a battle fought on the banks of the yamunA (Moslem Jun) or some other river (Moslem Raahib) between trilochanapAla and the Moslems. The Hindu king resolutely tried to prevent the Mohammedans from crossing the river by showering arrows and bringing down hundreds of Moslems. But wave after wave the ghazis kept pressing on eventually reaching the other side with their Sultan and engaging the Hindu army in close combat with lances and swords. trilochanapAla personally led his men and was surrounded by a Moslem force but he cut his way through with injuries and was relieved by bhImapAla, who drove back the attackers. They felt it might be better to retreat to jejAjabhukti and join the chandrAtreya-s but trilochanapAla either died from his wounds or was assassinated shortly thereafter. With that bhImapAla sought refuge in Kashmir. Thus, after a valiant struggle by 1019 CE the shAhIya kingdom came to an end. Despite the loss of their kingdom, with what ever personal wealth they had left they continued to support Hindu educational structures in Aryavarta till the death of bhImapAla around 1026 CE. Even a partisan of the the enemy, al Biruni, could not help admiring them – indicating that they were good rulers who did not give up defense of Aryavarta without the most strenuous struggle:
“This Hindu Shahiya dynasty is now extinct, and of the whole there is no longer the slightest remnant in existence. We must say that in all their grandeur, they never slackened in the ardent desire of doing that which is good and right, that they were men of noble sentiment and noble bearing.”
It is unfortunate that modern Hindus do little to honor the memories of these intrepid men, who even if unsuccessful, put everything into their struggles against the evils of the rAkShasa mata.

With this the mantle of the struggle against the jihad fell upon vidyAdhara. Analysis of the Mohammedan accounts concerning these encounters are confused and contradictory, in contrast to their general consistency in recording the deeds of Mahmud that are an object of great pride for them. None of them state a proper location regarding where the next battle with vidyAdhara took place. Based on al Athir’s account one might reconstruct that the battle was probably joined South of Bari and North of Gwalior along the line connecting them. We may reconstruct what happened thus: When the two armies came face to face. Mahmud first sent a messenger asking vidyAdhara to convert to Islam in which case he would not go to fight. Of course vidyAdhara rebuffed this offer and prepared for an assault. Mahmud seeing the force of 36,000 cavalry buttressed by infantry and elephant corps amassed by vidyAdhara turned nervous. According to most Moslem authors, except al Athir, no encounter occurred and each claims a miraculous event in which due to Allah’s mercy vidyAdhara fled in terror at night. Mahmud is said to have returned victoriously to Ghazni collecting 580 elephants from vidyAdhara’s deserted camp. The purposeful obfuscation of these accounts and the evidence for a major battle from the Khajuraho depictions suggest that a great battle (confirmed by al Athir) did occur and indeed the Moslems were put to flight. Mahmud sent a band of infantry spearmen to first probe Hindus. vidyAdhara responded similarly with his cavalry – the carvings show that the Hindu infantry fought with khaDga-s, khukri-s and spears. Seeing his men being overcome by the ferocity of the Hindu infantry, Mahmud sent it his cavalry backed by camel corps with lances. The Hindu khaDga and spear-armed cavalry moved into the field to parry it and an intense battle occurred till night fall. By then Hindus inflicted heavy losses on the Moslems and Mahmud saw it wise to retreat. So he sent a messenger to vidyAdhara to seek a safe retreat – who apparently offered it in a typical Hindu fashion and he retreated to Ghazni.

Three years later the Amir-al-Muminin decided to teach vidyAdhara a comprehensive lesson and at the head of a large ghazi force invaded India again in 1022. vidyAdhara sent his sAmanta kIrtirAja the kachChapaghAta to protect Gwalior. Mahmud tried to storm the fort of Gwalior but after four days for persistent fighting he failed to breach the fortifications. Avoiding a sally from kIrtirAja he advanced towards mahotsava and boasted that he would take the fort of kAla~Njar. But the Mohammedan chroniclers again note a peculiar end to this campaign: Apparently vidyAdhara sent a Sanskrit verse (Zaban-i-Hind) to Mahmud praising his valor, which was translated to him into Persian and Arabic. In return he also sent his congratulations praising vidyAdhara and conferred on him 15 forts and other gifts and returned to Ghazni in triumph. How come, we may ask, does one return in triumph after giving 15 forts and gifts to the kaffir enemy one seeks to eliminate! This euphemism suggests that the campaign against kAl~Njar was an unmitigated disaster for Mahmud. Indeed after this campaign we never see Mahmud attempting an invasion of this part of India. We observe the same pattern with Kashmir: After the saMgrAmarAja offered help to trilochanapAla, who defeated Mahmud at the Toshmaidan battle, Mahmud attacked him in 1015 CE. The Kashmirians defended their land using the fort of loharakoTa and repulsed Mahmud. Pricked by this defeat he made a second attempt in 1021 but was routed again by saMgrAma – he never went the Kashmir side again. Indeed, this suggests that Mahmud recognized superior armies and after being hammered by them rarely attempted engaging them again. This was similarly the case when he encountered bhojadeva after the invasion of 1025 CE. Marxist historians and their mlechCha fellow travelers have suggested that Mahmud’s primary intention for the raids were economic and that is why he did not hold on to the territories that he conquered in India. But the euphemisms expressed by the Mohammedan chroniclers regarding the encounter with vidyAdhara indicate that this was not the case at all. Rather, he has simply been overrated based on biased Islamic sources – he simply could not hold his own against the more powerful Hindu armies and faced with vidyAdhara defending from the formidable fort of kAla~Njar, with its elaborate 8 kilometer perimeter defenses, and supply systems, he was forced to cede the territories he had taken on account of rAjyapAla’s capitulation and retreat. While he massed 30-40,000 cavalry before kAla~Njar he realized he stood no chance against it. This was probably a skillful use of a psychological threat by vidyAdhara to reduce his morale. After that he launched a series of attacks on the Moslems to reconquer the strongholds taken by Mahmud and eventually nullified and reversed his advance in madhydesha. Thus, far from having retreated it was vidyAdhara who saved the core of North India from the second great surge of the army Islam – it is not without reason the last great chandrAtreya inscription from Mau remembers vidyAdhara as one of greatest of their clan, who was like indra battling the asura-s.

Until recently the glory of his deeds stood only in the form the great kandariyA mahadeva (above), jagadambi (originally a viShNu) and chitragupta (a sUrya) temples, which are exemplars of the respective Agama-s – perhaps among the greatest works of Hindu architecture [Footnote 4]. The engineering and fractal patterning have never been reproduced thereafter in Indian temple construction. Only recently excavations in Jatkari near Khajuraho have revealed the ruins of an even greater monument that vidyAdhara is likely to have built – the colossal 45 meter temple of rudra (the spire of kandariyA is 30 m). Among these ruins one finds images of the wars fought by the rAjA against the army of Islam – a testimony of his standing up to Mahmud’s assaults. Ironically, in 2008 CE a Moslem book dealer in Uttar Pradesh uncovered a 61cm, 4.25kg copper plate inscription of vidyAdhara with his signature from scrap metal dealers thereby rescuing a critical piece of India’s history. This inscription, while not fully published, indicates that vidyAdhara at kAla~Njara was indeed the wall that blocked Islam in India.

~oOo~
Footnote 1: tollwars or the talvAr is a curved saber of Mongol origin that seems to have been adopted by Hindus after their prolonged encounter with the Moslem. The first effective talvAr-s were made by the Chingizid Mongols and used in their conflicts as an effective cavalry weapon in their maneuvers. It was introduced to bhArata during the invasions of the Mongols after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate. In the coming centuries it was adopted by the rAjpUt-s and then spread among the mahArATTa-s with the spread of pitched cavalry encounters with the Moslems. Traditionally, the rAjpUt-s before that pointed had used the classical Indo-Aryan khaDga, which was also the main sword used by the south Indian Vijayanagaran state.

Footnote 2: While the Hindus were good at adopting various tactics and weapons from all from quarters Thorn’s blanket claim can be contested. In actual tactics the Hindu armies diverged in many ways from the European model – this can be the topic for a separate discussion in itself. In fact Wellesley adopted some Hindu tactics which led to his successes in the Indian wars but were appropriated and attributed to his genius.

Footnote 3: The Moslem accounts of the incidents surrounding this period is partisan, but their characteristic silence shows the lack of success that they would have otherwise inflated. The inscription in the chandrAtreya capital of mahotsava (Mahoba) shows that there was major battle fought by the rAjpUt coalition in which the Hindu troops contained the Mohammedan onslaught in the least. The chandella rAjA dha~Nga-deva, rAjyapAla the pratIhAra, the tomara-s and the ChahamAna-s were the major players in the coalition.It is possible that dha~Ngadeva’s mother was a princess from gandhAra, which was added incentive for him to send his forces for the defense of jayapAla.

Footnote 4: The architecture of the kharjuravAhika temples has been primarily sensationalized for their sexual imagery leading to the popular idea that they were temple of “sex” depicting the kAmasUtra and displaying the erotic excesses of the chandrAtreya rAjA-s. This is not surprising given that most modern Hindus do not understand why these sexual depictions are found on temples and might regard them as obscene along with mlechCha-s and turuShka-s. There are other points of misunderstanding seen in this regard – certain white indologists and their westernized Indian imitators also believed that these depictions were advertisements for secular sexual services provided by devAlaya kanyA-s. None of these really come close to their real origins. First, it should be noted that these depictions are not limited to Khajuraho but are found throughout India in temples of smArta, pAshupata (i.e. kAlAmukha), saiddhAntika, pA~ncharAtrika, kaula and bauddha affinities. Thus, its origins go back to the ancestral Agama traditions of bhArata. Indeed the early smArta Agama texts mention placing mithuna-s as auspicious marks in the facades and doorways of temple. In this tradition lie the origins of these depictions. In the sthApana tantra-s of the kaula tradition (now largely lost with exceptions like the shilpa prakAsha and the South Indian brahma-yAmala; not to be confused with the original pichu-mata) these underwent an elaboration. In these Agama-s the kAma-bandha-s are said to be depicted on temples to conceal and divert attention away from secret maNDala-s placed beneath them such as the kAmakalA yantra, which protect and consecrate the mandira. The pradhAna devatA-s of this maNDala are mahAkAmakaleshvarI and kAma-shiva and their retinue of yoginI-s of the vIrabhUmi. These yantra-s are said to be understood and revealed only to the tAntra dIkShita-s and are placed on the facades of temples. It is likely that these further developments in the kaula streams were mirrored in other Agamic schools. In this context it might be noted that the chandrAtreya-s themselves were smArta brAhmaNa-s turned kShatriya-s who did receive kaula and saiddhAntika dIkSha-s. One of their earliest temples is a chatushShaShTi yoginI prAsAda of the yoginI-kaula tradition and those in the know can deconvolute the kAmakalA yantra below some of the most famous depictions in Khajuraho.

saMvyAna= upper garment; aMshuka=blouse; pallava=fringe of the dress; taralam=tremulously; veNI-guNa=strands of tresses; sthiraM=firmly; mandaM=slowly’ ka~nchuka-sandhi= borders of the bra; stana-taTotsa~Nga= the contours of the breasts; dIptArchiSham= blazes into a flame; Alokya=sees;
tripurAvarodhana-vadhUvargasya= Attacking the throngs of tripura ladies; dhUma-dhvajaM= column of smoke; hasta= hand; srasta= drops; sharAsano= bow; vijayate= victory to; devo= the god; dayArdrekShaNaH= eye moist with pity.

Roughly: Victory to the god who with eyes most with pity looks on at the column of smoke attacking the throngs of tripura ladies, tremulously [seizing] the fringes of the upper garments and blouses, firmly [seizing] the strands of their tresses and slowly moving upon the borders of their bras and the contours of their breasts blazes into a flame.

Here is bANa’s repeated for comparison:
kShipto hastAvalagnaH prasabham abhihato .apy AdadAno .aMshukAntaM gR^ihNan kesheShv apAstash charaNa-nipatito nekShitaH saMbhrameNa |
Ali~Ngan yo .avadhUtas tripura-yuvatibhiH sAshru-netrotpalAbhiH kAmIvArdrAparAdhaH sa dahatu duritaM shAmbhavo vaH sharAgniH ||

kShipto=cast off; hastA= hands; avalagnaH= adhering to; prasabham=forcibly; abhihato= pushed away; .apy= moreover ; AdadAno= taking; aMshuka= dress; antaM=fringes; gR^ihNan=seized kesheShv=hair (locative plural); apAstash=thrown off; charaNa= foot; nipatito= fallen down; nekShitaH= not looked at; saMbhrameNa=perturbed/fear (instrumental singular)

Ali~Ngan= embrace; yo= which; .avadhUtas= shaken off; tripura-yuvatibhiH= tripura maids; sAshru-netrotpalAbhiH= tear-laden eye-lotuses (instrumental plural); kAmiiva= like a lover; ardrAparAdhaH= transgression of an affair; sa=he; dahatu=burn; duritaM=sins; shAmbhavo=of shaMbhu; vaH= you; sharAgniH= arrow fire.

Roughly: Though cast off he grasped their hands, moreover though forcibly pushed away he took hold of the fringes of their dress, though thrown off he got into their hair; though in fearful awe he was not looked at, he fell at their feet like a lover guilty from the affair with another; thus, though shaken off by the tripura maids, with their lotus eyes laden with tears, did the fire from shaMbhu’s missile embrace them; may he burn your sins.

Another effort on the identical theme is that of the obscure poet ma~Ngala who is cited by many poets at least after the 900s of the CE:
sindUra shrIr lalATe kanaka-rasa-mayaH karNa-pArshve .avataMso vaktre tAmbUla-rAgaH pR^ithu-kucha-kalashe ku~NkumasyaanulepaH |
daityAdhIshaa~NganAnAM jaghana-parisare lAkShika-kShauma-lakShmIr ashreyAMsi kShiNoti tripura-hara-sharodgAra-janmAnalo vaH ||

sindUra= vermilion; shrIr= auspicious mark; lalATe=on fore head; kanaka-rasa-mayaH=gold and mercury burnished; karNa-pArshve .avataMso= earrings of the earlobes; vaktre=on mouth; tAmbUla-rAgaH=betelnut paste; pR^ithu-kucha-kalashe= broad pitcher-like breasts; ku~NkumasyaanulepaH= smearings of ku~Nkuma; daityAdhIshaa~NganAnAM= of the women of the lord of the daityas; jaghana-parisare= around the hips; lAkShika-kShauma-lakShmIr= rich carmine-dyed silk; ashreyAMsi= infelicities; kShiNoti= removes; tripura-hara-sharodgAra-janmAnalo=fire born from the discharge of the arrow that destroyed the three citadels; vaH= your

May fire born from the discharge of the arrow that destroyed the three citadels, which [burns] like the auspicious vermilion on mark on the forehead of the women of the lord the daitya-s, like the gold and mercury burnished earrings on their lobes, the betelnut paste on their mouths, like the ku~Nkuma smearings on their broad pitcher-like breasts and like the rich carmine-dyed silk around their hips, remove your infelicities.

This verse by ma~Ngala, while ornate, at least to our tastes, seems a less smooth than those of the masters bANa and mayUra. In any case these verses offer some interesting lifestyle information about the early medieval period of Hindu India: 1) Three terms of female attire: ka~nchuka, aMshuka and saMvyAna suggest that multiply layered upper garments were worn by women since at least the 600s of the CE contrary to the claims made based on the iconography.
2) ma~Ngala’s verse provides evidence for lAkShika, i.e. the carmine dye extracted from the scale insect Laccifer lacca being used to dye silk. Of course other uses of the lAkSha (AV-vulgate 5.5), as a plaster for bone fractures, or in making flammable structures (the kaurava plot in the bhArata), or to extract medicinal compounds are widely seen in old Sanskrit literature.

This act of cultural genocide ranks along with those of their cousins in the New World in erasing the native civilizations of those continents. These and related events have created a deep void in our understanding of the actual form the dharma in the southern island. This was compounded by the revivalist form sthaviravAda that has sort to expunge or conceal the natural form of the dharma on the island. Our knowledge of the islanders’ system comes in no small part due to the efforts of Paranavitana and Gananath Obeyesekere. The latter in particular was a remarkable student of the Shrilankan pantheon – his work is rich in important original data, but it is sadly marred by his fascination to create western style pseudo-theories often based based on western dogmatic doctrines such as Freudism. These theories combined by his sub-current bauddha bias have made the interpretive aspects of work unsound, but they do not detract from the core value of his textual collections and ethnological observations [We must point out that GO himself accepts that fact his work is a product of western conditioning].

The Lankan pantheon accommodates 6 deities in a primary position. These include:
Two characters from rAmAyaNa- 1) the rAkShasa vibhIShaNa. 2) saman: who is a complex syncretic evolute of the very early nAstika samantabhadra (i.e. prior to his full-fledged emergence in the mahAyAna form) and the rAmAyaNa’s lakShmaNa further identified with a solar deity. He is the deity of samantakUTa and ratnapura.
Two deities who were simultaneous enormously popular in the early Tamil and Andhra countries: 3) viShNu – the deity of Devinuvara. 4) skanda – the deity of kataragAma.
A future buddha: 5) maitreya – he is commonly known as nAtha in the Lankan tradition.
An enigmatic goddess known from the old Tamil country and humanized in the Tamil epic of the shilapadhikAraM – patnI. She is the kaNNakI of the Tamil epic who is presented in it as being posthumously deified as pattinI amman.

hese deities occur alongside those inherited from the common pantheon of the followers of dharma and some others of uncertain provenance. However, most of these other deities barring indra, have considerably reduced in their roles in Lanka, though some might occupy local prominence. From the main six, different sets of tetrads have been drawn, and are widely worshiped as the four guardians of Lanka (the satara deviyo) and the saugata-mata practice on the island. The tetrads appear to be modeled upon the older bauddha tetrad of the 4 deities laid out in the ATAnATIya sutta [Footnote 1]. Of these the cult of vibhIShaNa was specially associated with the Lankan capital, as he was seen as the legendary ruler of Lanka having inherited the throne from rAvaNa by siding with the invading force of rAma. His great rAkShasAlaya was in kalyANI near modern Colombo. Unfortunately, his temple too was destroyed in the Portuguese cultural genocide. Though the shrine was rebuilt later, the textual traditions pertaining to his worship have been largely lost during the Portuguese occupation and the modern resurgence of sthaviravAda has resulted in a further decline in his cult. Also occasionally associated with these big six is gaNapati, who is worshiped as gaNa deviyo. A siMhala mantra text to this deity recorded by Gananath Obeyesekere has been translated thus:

“O gaNa deviyo, godly king, divine listener, lord of the ruhuNa country, bringer of all knowledge and intelligence, we seek blessings in your name.”

While not enumerated among the big six his presence is seen in their rituals in more than one place. gaNapati also appears in several combined invocations alongside some other deities, including members from the big six and other deities of the classical Indo-Aryan pantheon. For example at the beginning of certain ceremonies one might encounter a recitation such as:
In this blessed isle of lankA laden with plenty
we give various offerings and gifts
to the beautiful and powerful
prince skanda, the god
O lord skanda
O lord gaNa devi~ndu
O devI sarasvatI
O goddess mahikAntA (i.e. pR^ithivi)
We utter this invocation today
Give us blessings and kindness.

Or the invocation for boons:
You who bring victory to all beings
gaNesha and all ye other gods;
prince skanda who is the guru of all the world
Protect us and give us well-being, O god skanda.

In the sky above the sun and moon hold sway,
On the earth below the earth goddess holds sway,
for the whole world prince skanda holds sway,
for us here the seven patnI-s hold sway.

patnI full of merit and chaste!
O prince skanda, guru of the three worlds!
We sing songs of the a~Nkeliya [Footnote 2],
And sing how diseases subside.

~oOo~oO^Oo~oOo~

Footnote 1: The tAthAgata-s have a confused several ancient Aryan deities in making up this tetrad. They include: 1) kubera, the lord of the yakSha-s; 2) dhR^itarAShTra – he is a nAga lord in classical tradition but the tAthAgata-s have confused him as being the gandharva lord. 3) virUpAkSha – he is traditionally a rakSha lord, but the bauddha-s have confused him as being the nAga lord. 4) virUDhaka, the lord of the kumbhANDa-s.

Footnote 2: A vulgar shrIlankan game of jostling and pulling with hooked sticks. It might occur in the month of vishAkhA or close to the autumnal equinox. It was once widespread among both the Tamil and siMhala peoples but has now become largely obsolete. It is supposed to have been instituted by gaNapati to bring about a truce between patnI (kaNNaki) and gopAla (kovalan) who were its initial players. Its origins might have even been in the Tamil country, but it is entirely extinct there.

Bereft of sound, color, or the fundamental guNa-s, it cannot be spoken about or known, so I (i.e. saraha) say.
How can the parameshvara be described? Like a girl’s first experience of an orgasm.

Two terms are of note here: 1) This dohA has a rather shaiva ring to it. It goes rather against all primary bauddha concepts to consider the entity beyond the guNa-s who cannot be described or known to be parameshvara. However, this parameshvara can be interpreted within the bauddha framework of a yogin, such as saraha, as representing a heruka deity such as buddhakapAla, hevajra or the chakrasaMvara. But the specific term parameshvara clearly indicates that this doha was acquired without much or any modification from a shaiva source. From iconographic and hagiographic sources its clear that sarahapAda, the euphemistic mahAbrAhmaNa, took on the emblems of the kApAlika type. We also know that the bauddha yogin-s frequented the same great shmashAna-s and pITha-s as those used by the shaiva practitioners of the pAshupata mata, the bhairava srotas, the kula-prakriyA. It was probably in such kShetra-s, the bauddha yogin-s acquired doha-s, along with elements of the charyAgIti-s composed by kaula nAtha-s (e.g. the doha-s of the kaula nAtha-s collected by H.P. Dwivedi). 2) The sexual allegory used in doha is suggestive of the performance of maithuna as per the shaiva kaula ritual. In the kaula ritual the pleasurable activities are aimed at satiating the deities residing in the organs with the ultimately non-dual consciousness being experienced via maithuna, where yogin and the dUtI’s consciousness are one.

Nau aNu Nau paramANu vichintaje
aNavara a bhAvahi phurai surattaje |
bhaNai saraha bhanti eta vimattaje
are NikkolI vujjhai paramatthaje ||

Don’t think it’s the atoms or the fundamental particles; it is the unending orgiastic delight that pervades existence.
saraha says that such [i.e. atomic] false thinking is madness; arrey ! low-born one understand the ultimate reality.

The alliterative effects of saraha are at high point in this dohA. A point of interest is his attack on atomism, which in some ways resembles the attack on atomism by the advaita vedAntin-s. Who are the atomists he is attacking? The atomic ideas could come from nyAya, vaisheShika or even sAMkhya, but the view the particles are fundamental is central to the former two. Given the evidence that shaiva-s, especially those of the atimArga (e.g. the kAlAmukha) and to a degree the saiddhAntika-s were followers of the atomic doctrine, we suspect that this attack is directed towards their theories of existence.

paNDia saala sattha vakkhANai
dehahiM buddha vasanta na jANai |
avaNAgamana Na teNa vikhaNDia
tovi Nilajja bhaNai hauM paNDia ||
The pundit expounds the entire shAstra not knowing that the buddha dwells within his body.
[The cycles of ] coming and going are not shattered by that means but he shamelessly says: “I am a pundit”.

This is not an attack on the Astika brAhmaNa paNDita-s but his own fellow nAstika paNDita-s who taught at the centers like nAlandA and varendrI. In some ways this is reminiscent of a text termed the bhaja govindaM composed by the shaMkarAdvaitin-s of south India influenced by the dattAtreyan ascetic tradition. There the paNinian rules are condemned. The bhaja govindaM is wrongly attributed to AdishaMkara, who unlike the spirit expressed in the text strongly emphasized scholarly tradition. The anti-scholastic tendencies rose among the siddha-s’ compositions (like that of sarahapAda) and diffused among the various ascetic groups before eventually even infecting the medieval shaMkarAdvaita tradition – however, unlike saraha they expressed their anti-scholastic thoughts in elegant Sanskrit.Importantly, the very survival of these doha-s was due their incorporation into the scholarly tradition of the nAstika-s – the doha-s of saraha are preserved as a part of a Sanskrit commentarial tradition represented by the dohA-kosha-pa~njikA. We also know that saraha himself contributed to the scholastic tradition via his commentaries on the yoginI tantra-s such as the buddhakapala tantraM. This is in line with the tAntrika work of other dohA composers, like kR^iShNAcharya’s commentary on the hevajra tantra. This raises the question as to what is the relationship between the tantra commentators and the dohA composers – have they been synonymized even as shaMkara was made the author of the bhaja govindaM and the tAntrika texts like the saundaryalaharI or the prapa~nchasAra? The case of the nAstika AchArya-s appears to be very different from that of the vedAntAchArya – the former do really belong inside the nAstika yoginI tantra tradition. The anti-scholasticism of these AchArya-s appears to reflect their expression after the attainment of the sahaja state in which the other devices seem empty.

Avanta Na dIssai janta Nahi achChanta Na muNiai |
Nittara~Nga paramesuru Nikkala~Nka dhAhijjai ||
You don’t see it coming nor going, you don’t know it when it is there;
parameshvara is without waves, blemishless and [as though] washed clean.

This is dohA is notable again because of its use of the shaiva term parameshvara as in the one mentioned above. The interesting point here is the use of the term “Nittara~Nga”, i.e. without waves – this might be considered along side the idea expressed in the shaiva kaula systems that the body of shiva (the parameshvara) is the “sky of consciousness” in which like in the ocean the universe emerges and ends through the conjunction and disjunction of waves which are the shakti-s (this is clearly expounded in the virUpAkSha pa~nchAshika). This dohA instead seems to insist on the converse trying to present the parameshvara as being free from such waves.

Avai jAi Na chChaDDai tAvahu |
kahiM apuvvA vilAsiNi pAvahu ||
If you do not renounce the coming and going how can you attain the incomparable vilAsinI ?

This verse is particular interesting because it mentions the attainment of vilAsinI. We suspect that this is not just a casual name for the yoginI attained upon renunciation of the saMsAra cycle, but is likely to represent a specific reference to the erotic kaula deity vilAsinI. The vilAsinI-kula system is closely shared by both the Astika-s and nAstika-s. In the nAstika world we encounter the goddess in the vajra-vilAsinI-stotra of the Acharya vibhUtichandra who extensively transmitted his tAntrika lore to the Tibetans after the destruction of the Indian universities by the Moslems. The tAthAgata-s have also incorporated the worship of vilAsinI taught by the early kaula siddha shabara in a vajrified form in the guhya-vajra-vilAsinI sAdhana.

Sanskrit allows some unusual paronomasias that are not available in most other languages. Above are examples of such, where the question and the answer can be encoded in the same sentence with just a difference in the padapATha. The tradition of the padapaTha, which is an ancient Indo-Iranian tradition (lost early in the Iranian world), appears to have favored the emergence of such puns. The other shleSha-s of saMskR^ita appear to have their origins in the wide range of dvandva-s and hetero-semantic homonyms. Of these only the last are prominent in dominant IE language of the modern world i.e. that of our former conquerors from the nation of sea-going marauders.

Such literary structures are of great interest because several of them reoccur in various artistic and philosophical expressions which are widely scattered in space and time. For example, the concepts behind several of these Sanskritic figures of speech reappear several centuries or even millennia later in European art – the creations of the Swedish artist Reutersvärd, the Dutch artist Escher and the English mathematicians, Roger and Lionel Penrose. It is precisely for this reason we singled out the above-provided expressions in Sanskrit. While we find parallels to several of the other Sanskritic figures of speech in artistic expressions like those of Escher, we are yet to find precise parallels to the questions which answer themselves in expressions elsewhere in the world.

Now let us see some parallels that do exist:
sarvasvaM hara sarvasya tvaM bhavach ChedatatparaH |
nayopakAra sAMmukhyam AyAsi tanuvartanam || (mammaTa)
A votary to rudra: O hara! You are the whole of all that exists, focused on cutting the bonds of subject-object existence. You have striven to attain that state of being, which presents a combination of assistance and guidance.
A thief to his son: You must plunder everything, intending to break into everyone’s treasure; deploy every device and counter-measure and you will overcome [other] people’s measures.

Here the duality of meaning is achieved at different levels: the word hara is either interpreted as an epithet of rudra or as a verb (imperative plunder). Similarly naya is interpreted as a noun (guidance) or as a verb (imperative deploy). The nouns bhava, saMmukhya is differentially interpreted via duality of meaning. The word tanuvartana is interpreted via different samAsa-s and different shades of the meaning of the verb AyAsi are used in the two interpretations. We see this being comparable to an Escherian interpretation of space either using black or a white key in the below figure. Each set gives a totally different set of animals, yet, as in the above verse, both interpretations or meanings are there simultaneously.

Now let us look at another device, which appear rather early in the history of saMskR^ita, right in the veda itself.
aditer-dakSho-ajAyata dakShAd vaditiH pari || RV 10.72.4c
aditir-hy ajaniShTa dakSha yA duhitA tava | RV 10.72.5a
dakSha was born of aditi, and aditi was born of dakSha. Indeed aditi brought forth, O dakSha who is your daughter.
This can be compared to what Douglas Hofstader calls a strange loop. He points to the presence of such paradoxical loops in various contexts ranging from the Greek pseudomenon or the liar’s paradox, Bach’s compositions, to the famous incompleteness theorem of Gödel. Indeed, Escher made good use of this in his art:

The final parallel that we shall consider is the one offered by viloma kAvya:
shrI rAmato madhyamatodi yena dhIro.anishaM vashyavatI varAdvA |
dvArAvatI vashyavashaM nirodhI nayedito madhyamato .amarA shrIH ||

We may compare this with the below work of Escher:

With the sachiva we had proceeded to the fortress one who wanders among the granite rocks. The amAtya wished that we meet the bearer of the two torches. We observed that the hero was bound by the arAyI. Since we were enormously weakened, we told the sachiva not to attack and retreat silently. Contrary to our advice the sachiva became involved in the battle of ohas – the out come was uncertain with respect to the sachiva but it only weakened the hero further. We then fulfilled the amAtya’s wishes but saw through the hollowness of the bearer of the two torches. We returned even further weakened from the adventure.

The yogin was waiting in dhanurdAru-dvIpa. After years of struggle the dUtI appeared before him. He did not know at first if she was a dUtI or just a woman – after all a yogin without the j~nAna may not know that only through a dUtI can siddhi be attained. The dUtI sent him a signal. Verily the signals of dUtI are as clear as the midday sun and he who receives his dIkSha from her can be a mantra-siddha. He conjoined with her and attained siddhi even as a mantra of uchChiShTa gaNapati bearing fruit. The power of his yoga was complete – even though they cut him up he was whole again.

They call that rAkShasa vjR^imbhin. He verily opens the doors for the rest. He prevented the yAmala in the Aj~na from placing the sAdhaka beyond the realm of the sun, moon and fire. What is the secret to over come that rAkShasa, like viShNu’s underground stem?

“They say that even Homer did not leave behind his poems in writing, but that they were transmitted by memorization and put together out of the songs, and that therefore they contain many inconsistencies.”

Indeed, the classical Greek script was of Semitic origin – a point in line with Yosef’s basic contention that Greek culture and knowledge is secondary and derivative vis-a-vis that of the Abrahamists. According to him knowledge and culture was first imparted to the Egyptians by Abraham and in turn the Egyptians taught the Greeks. This was to set the undercurrent for the non-Islamic strand of the Abrahamo-Heathen polemical interaction (sometimes disguised as scholarship) up to the present date. While deeply influenced by this narrative, which forms the subterranean foundation of Western thought, the history of Greek writing has more intriguing questions than that. The very question of Greek writing was first studied by the German philologist Friedrich Wolf: He came to the conclusion that the Homeric epics were orally composed and came to the conclusion that the Homeric Greeks knew no writing. He mentions several points that are identical to the arguments made by indologists regarding the illiteracy of the Hindus of the veda-s and the epics:
1) The absence of words for books, writing, reading and letters. 2) An emphasis on the goddesses of memory but no deity or significance for writing. 3) No mention of money or monuments with inscriptions.
These arguments by Wolf dominated the field of Greek studies ever since – of course, there is the famous issue of the Bellerophon tablet, but it has been variously argued away or dismissed even as rukmiNI’s letter to kR^iShNa in the Indic situation. However, it has been pointed out that even in this case the traditional Greek word for writing (grammata) has not been used [Footnote 1]. Further studies on Homeric poetry, such as the “meter-filler motifs”, have established beyond much doubt that they were part of an oral tradition that did not use any writing for its composition, much like the bhArata or the rAmAyaNa. Now, given the linguistic, structural and motif similarities between the Indo-Aryan and Greek epics one would easily extrapolate that the common ancestor of the Greek and the Hindu knew no writing at all. It would imply that since their branching off down through the Homeric period the Greeks did not know any writing what so ever. This would indeed be the best explanation if we did not have any other data.

sito-potnia

Here is where the decipherment of the linear B script completely changed the picture. Since the discovery of the linear B inscriptions in Crete at the beginning of the 1900s it was held that it encoded a non-Greek language termed Minoan. However, in the 1950s the young amateur Ventris, following up on Kober’s work, decoded the script as being a dialect Greek. Further work by Chadwick established that it was indeed a likely to be a pre-Homeric dialect of Greek with archaisms retained from the ancestral Indo-European condition, similar to the case of the Vedic dialects of Sanskrit. Thus, it became clear that Mycenaean Greek went back to at least 1600 BCE; more surprisingly, it showed that even though Homer apparently knew no writing, there was a pre-Homeric Greek whose only record was in the form of the linear B inscriptions. Of course, an unbiased student could raise the question that if Homeric Greek was not written then how could we be sure that the Mycenaean Greek preceded it. We are fairly convinced of this being the case on account of the linguistic archaisms of the Mycenaean form of the dialect vis-a-vis the Ionian dialect of Homer. In this regard we shall touch upon a few points: 1) The name of the chief deity takes the form: diw-ye-us/ dative: diwe (in Knossos text); 2) the name of his wife the great goddess appears in the form di-wi-a; 3) The mention of a goddesses of harvest, sito-potnia: we believe she is the cognate of the vaidika harvest goddess sItA patnI invoked in the mantra-s of vAmadeva gautama (RV 4.57.6-7). The use of the word potnia (=Skt patnI) for a goddess (e.g. athanA potnia in Mycenaean for Athena) is an archaic Indo-European tradition retained in the Vedic tradition (e.g. the ritual of offerings to the goddesses: the patnI-saMyAja and the patnI mantra-s of the atri-s, RV maNDala 5). 4) The mention of the deity tris-heros: we believe he was the cognate of viShNu, lost in later Greek lore (Though a connection with trita Aptya and later Greek Triton cannot be entirely ruled out). 4) The deity dompotis: we see him as a cognate of vAsthoShpati. 5) The term pa-si-the-o-i taken to mean “to all gods” comparable to vishvedevAH is seen repeatedly in Mycenaean inscriptions. 6) The word for goat: aiza (compare with Skt aja). 7) The phrase cow-eyed or “of the form of a cow” for the goddesses appears as guowia (compare with the RV form gomAtar for goddesses, like the wife of rudra). Note the form guo which is close to the old Indo-European form as opposed to the form boopis in Homeric Greek.Several of these features suggest that Mycenaean Greek displayed features that were closer to the ancestral Indo-European condition than even that seen in the traditions preserved in the Ionian dialect. Nevertheless, linguists have noticed several features that suggest that it is close to Ionian and the eastern Greek dialects suggesting that the split between the early Greek dialects happened before 1600 BCE. In this context one point is of interest. We find the earliest attestation of the word “Ionian” in the Mycenaean texts. It assumes the form: i-ya-wo-ne; which is comparable to the form in which it is known outside of the Greek word, e.g. in the Indo-Aryan texts as: yavana or in Semitic texts as yAvAn. This suggests that the transmission of the term to these traditions might have been early rather than much later as proposed at least for Indo-Aryan.

The other major thing that the discovery of Mycenaean did was to provide an early written attestation for Indo-European. Three Indo-European languages are attested in second millennium before the common era, interestingly, all roughly around the same time: Hittite appears in texts in the 1600s BCE, Mycenaean appears a little thereafter between 1600-1500 BCE and Indo-Aryan appears in the Mittani texts around 1500 BCE. All these occurrences of Indo-European in written texts of are also spatially pretty close too: They all occur in an arc in the eastern half of the Mediterranean from Greece to the Levant. Of these Hittite is the earliest to appear with fragments occurring as loans in records of Assyrian merchants around 1900 BCE. But Hittite is the earliest to lineage to branch of from the remaining Indo-European branches (following the Indo-Hittite model). So it reaching this region a little before the rest is not in conflict with any other fact. So what this evidence tells us is that the break up of all the major branches of IE had happened before 1500 BCE and that some of them had by this time completed a southward movement from their land of snow, wool, horses and wheels. Further, it may be noted that they are not too far away from the likely IE homeland in the region of the steppes bounded by the Carpathian, Caucasus and Ural mountains. So, from such a location they moved south around the Black sea to reach the locations seen in their first written records. This suggests that, at least as afar as the West Asia and South Eastern Europe, the movements of the Greeks and Indo-Aryans were perhaps coupled events. While it is clear that Hittite and the associated Anatolian languages diverged before any of the rest, their main movement into West Asia might still be coupled with that of the Aryans. In this regard we might present some points of support: It has been known for a while that several Indo-Aryan loans pertaining to horse training are embedded in Hittite (e.g. pa~nchavartana for five laps). While the Hittite word for horse remains unknown, because it is represented by a sumerogram whose sound value is unclear, in its sister language Luwian we have the word a-su-wa, which is clearly a loan from Indo-Aryan. The Luwian word for good is deciphered as vasu, which appears to be an tad-bhava Indo-Aryan loan. Also of relevance is the Hittite word weseyatari: to graze, and westaras: shepherd which appear to be Indo-Iranian loans – compare with Avestan: vAstra: fodder and vAstara: shepherd.

The decipherment of these written records illustrate the problems of archeology without readable texts. Now Hittite, Indo-Aryan and Greek at their first attestation are all recorded in script systems that were already in use for unrelated languages before their arrival. So if these scripts systems were unreadable or yet undeciphered, like the Indus graffiti, we would simply have no idea that the Greek and Indo-Aryan even existed in those texts. A striking example is the word for the horse in Hittite: We do not know what its phonetic value was because of the use of the sumerogram rather than a phonetic rendering. Thus, even though we know the Hittites used the horse we do not know what they called it (Given the Luwian a-su-wa it is quite possible that Hittites also used an Indo-Aryan loan). This issue also comes out starkly when we compare the situation in West Asia and Greece with the situation in the Sintashta and Andronovo archeological cultures in which we find no writing. While the artifacts in these cultures are suggestive of Indo-Iranians and Greeks, we simply cannot be sure what combination of these groups, in which stage of their evolutionary do these archaeological cultures represent.

When these considerations are taken together with Homer’s illiteracy we have some important “lessons of analogy” for the situation in India.Consider the following:
1) In both India and Greece the largest bodies of their ancient texts are products of oral tradition.
2) In both India and Greece there knowledge of writing was lost or greatly declined for a considerable period after the initial appearance of writing (Indus and Linear B graffiti) and was subsequently regained using completely different scripts (Classical Greek alphabet and the brAhmI script).
3) In both India and Greece the initial writing was highly abbreviated (Indus) or limited in its expression of issues (Linear B). Linear B texts are rather boring commercial and administrative fragments compared to the later oral literature – while there are few names of deities and sketchy mentions of ritual actions, they can hardly be compared to Homeric material. Likewise, the surviving Indus graffiti is a little too short to contain any intrinsically interesting texts. So the initial writing in both places was not a substitute for their oral traditions.
4) In both places the Indo-European speakers were an invasive group coming from the steppes, but in terms of the pure archaeological record (not textual) there was little to distinguish their settling from the preexisting archeological cultures.
5) In both places there was loss of the initial urbanization associated with the widespread use of writing and secondary re-acquisition of writing happened sometime after the second re-urbanization.

The one point that is clear from the Mycenaean evidence is that the Greeks rather easily adapted the local tradition of writing for their own unrelated language. This is also true of the Indo-Aryans of West Asia. But in India the white indologists, Russian tradition of Kuz’mina and their fellow travelers have chosen to place the Indo-Aryan invasion well after the end of the Indus civilization or along-side the destruction of the Indus and Bactria-Margiana civilizations (BMAC) by the invading Indo-Aryans. Hence, they claim that the Indo-Aryans never had the chance to acquire any writing in India until they derived the brAhmI script from the West Semitic scripts, even as the Greeks had done before them. The strongest arguments to support this claim for the Aryans invading after the end of the Indus civilization are: 1) the conjecture that the Indo-Aryan invasion of West Asia was coeval with their invasion of India and hence, slightly before the composition of the R^igveda. 2) The expansion of the Fedorovo sub-culture of the Andronovo culture with the earliest evidence according to Igor Diakonoff of fire rituals and cremations happened around 1500 BCE. So it its consistent with the Indo-Aryans invading India and West Asia around this time. The Indo-Aryans were unable to establish themselves for long in West Asia because there was an already flourishing urban civilization but in India they could impose their culture in the vacuum arising from the vanishing of the urban Indus civilization. But the problem with these arguments is that there is really nothing at all from India to support this scenario. So in the absence of evidence all the other possibilities are open. Aryan markers are rare, but found much before 1500 BCE, even in the mature Harappan phase, even as they occasionally occur in the BMAC sites of similar antiquity: 1) The terracotta horse from Lothal; 2) The horse skeletal fragments from Surkotada (incorrectly disputed by supporters of white indologists like Meadow); 3) Depictions of spoked wheels from Rakhigarhi, Banawali and Kalibangan. These suggest that it is entirely possible that the Indo-Aryans had already reached India during the mature Harappan phase and settled in the Indus regions. In this regard it might be be noted that their origin in the steppes does not mean that the Aryans and Greeks were unaware of cities and life in settlements. The following should be noted: 1) The word for fortified towns pura in Sanskrit, polis in Greek and pilis in Lithuanian suggest that the old Indo-Europeans of the steppes had such structures in their ancestral home. 2) The Arkaim fortified town and other Sintashta sites supports the presence of such planned architectures for settlements in the steppes (though it is not clear if Arkaim is Iranian or a remnant of Indo-Aryans left behind closer to their homeland). These towns also had bricks laying to rest the idea that the iShTaka of the veda (and its avestan cognate) had to be borrowed from the BMAC or the IVC. 3) The term fort-breaker or fort-conqueror, Skt: puraMdara and Greek ekpoliorketes does not imply that the early Greeks and Aryans did not have forts and only their settled rivals did. These simply indicate that taking fortified cities was an important facet of their warfare and that they lived in fortified towns themselves. So they might well have occupied preexisting urban centers and really found no need to destroy them.

So in light of the precedence from Homeric illiteracy we should not be surprised if Indo-Aryans had indeed acquired the Indus script for rendering their own language (though it originally encoded a different language) and that it was lost, much as writing was lost in Greece after the Mycenaean collapse. Now there are two other points of interest: 1) It is believed that the events in the Mycenaean period (when writing existed) provided the historical foundations of the Greek epics. In support of this it is argued that the Hittite town of Wilusa corresponds to Wilion>Ilion, a name of Troy. The Hittite texts mention a certain Wilusa episode involving hostility by the Ahhiyawa. This has generally been interpreted as the invasion of Troy by the Achaeans (=Ahhiyawa). An Ahhiyawa invader is also named as the Attarisiya which has been interpreted as the Atreus, the clan of Agamemnon and Menelaus, leaders of the Achaean invasion of Troy. Further, in the Odyssey there is a mention of the attempted invasion of Egypt by the Achaeans. This probably corresponds to the reference to the Danaans in Egyptians records among the maritime invaders of their their land. In conclusion, the Homeric epics which betray an absence of writing actually record traditions from a time when writing was current. This emphasizes an important point – the Linear B writing tradition of the Greeks was not seen as something that replaced or even competed with the old Indo-European epic/ritual hymn tradition – it had a totally different role. This suggests that a similar situation might have held in India – if there was a temporal overlap between the Indo-Aryan vedic and epic traditions and the Indus script, the oral tradition could have completely ignored or not intersected with the use of writing. So based on the Homeric precedence, the apparent absence of the mention of writing can no longer be held as a sign of real illiteracy of the associated society. 2) One of the causes for the end of the Mycenaean civilization is held to be the invasion of another Greek group the Dorians. In Greek epics these invasions are believed to represent the return of the Heracleidai, he descendents of Herakles who set out to conquer Greece from the other rulers. From the historical view point it is interesting to note that the use of the script declined after the Dorian invasion even though the Dorians were Greek speakers and could have easily adapted the Linear B themselves. This also points to the fact there could have been multiple waves of invasions of speakers of the same or related Indo-European languages who differed in their proclivity to adopt scripts. We suspect that similarly there were multiple waves of Indo-European invasions into India. Most of these were waves were Indo-Aryans or at best Iranians, though there might have additionally even been a kentum type non-Indo-Iranian wave – sort of a mirror image of the western branch of Indo-Aryans (Mittani superstrate) that appeared in West Asia [Footnote 2]. We discern several such waves based on Indo-Aryan literary tradition: 1) The pa~nchajana (who may have come in more than one wave); 2) the ikShvAku (these two are early waves); 3) the shalva-s; 4) the pANDava-s; Thus, even in India the different waves might have shown different levels of interest in the written medium.

~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~
Footnote 1: Interestingly, when the Greeks did start writing they used the word grammata, meaning scratchings, even as the Indians used the word likhati – which is also derived from the root “to scratch”.

Footnote 2: Interestingly, Greek epic tradition records an Indian force in the Trojan war. Memnon the king of the Ethiopians is said to have led a band of Indians to aid Priam and killed the Achaean hero Antilochus, the prince of Pylos. He and his band are said to have been finally destroyed by Achilles. These Indians could have been the Indo-Aryans of West Asia, though we cannot rule out a later interpolation. Nevertheless. it is interesting to note that the Greek and Indo-Aryan epic traditions acknowledge each others presence as minor participants in their respective great wars.

It was a community whose moorings had been shaken by the incubus of the English rule, and the death and short life spans that characterized the land in the first half of the 1900s – reeking with a strong sense of foreboding of the growing age of the kali. Her struggling family supported by a widowed mother drawing off ancestral possessions was no different. Even as a kid she was distinct from the remaining women – some what unconventional, more like the men of the community. She expressed a rather “blasphemous” view before the age of five of wanting to learn the shruti. This of course was no, but she persisted with it hanging about in the vicinity of the pAThashAla and acquiring its knowledge in the secret. On the other side she insisted on going to a secular school to acquire western education and the AMgalika bhASha. Reluctantly her family indulged this fancy of hers. Once in the secular school her brahminical intellect towered even over the males of her class. Here natural facility with the devabhASha caught her brAhmaNa teacher’s attention, who started giving her additional lessons. He introduced her to the common fare – kAvya, alaMkAra and the like through which she breezed without much difficulty. But what surprised him was her independent study of the agnipurANa around the age of 13. He was surprised by her ability to expand from pratIka the various vaidika mantra-s in the vidhAna. It abraded against the conventions of the age and he tried to dissuade her from dabbling from any such stuff and instead spend her energy in the bhAgavata purANa, as would be fit for a woman. She calmly showed how she had already studied the bhAgavata and was familiar with some intricacies that were not apparent to the regular bhakti-oriented reader. At this point it suddenly struck him that he was dealing with someone who might even be beyond his capabilities and informed her family that they should pay close attention to her eccentricity – especially certain points she had noted in the agni purANa and the bhAgavata. Her brother intuitively suspected that a learned vaikhAnasa paNDita from mannArguDi he knew might be able to evaluate her. This vaikhAnasa, while a hereditary archaka, had considerable knowledge of various tAntrika lore and also Tamil literature. Their meeting was tense, the vaikhAnasa realized that he was coming face-to-face with a girl who was already familiar with certain rahasya-s of different mantra mArga-s. But he feared breaking conventions, and suggested that she concentrate on acquiring skills to be a good wife and that such mantra-s could back-fire without appropriate dIkSha. Nevertheless, he taught her some Tamil lore that considerably helped her in her secular studies. In the mean time her achievements in secular education showed similar penetration. So her family took the rather drastic move of letting her continue on to higher secular studies by moving to the city of Chennai (which as some would know were well informed by her facility in the devabhASha and its literature).

During her secular studies in the city of Chennai, she earned some additional income by writing some journalistic material in Tamil. Via these she came in contact with a shUdra mantravAdinI from the chera country who gave her kaula dIkSha to the three-syllabled tripurashekhara mantra and introduced her to a great sarvAdhikArI kaula practitioner of the Madhurai school. With him she rather rapidly progressed through realms of the mantra-shAstra that few had scaled, acquiring pA~ncharAtrika, saiddhAntika, vAma, various bhUta and bhairava traditions. At the same time in Chennai she became the pupil of two famous paNDita-s who are renowned for their work to this date. With them she earned a high secular degree and also initiated academic studies on the history of the tantra-s. The first person to do this in a modern sense as far I know. She made some remarkable investigations regarding the early pA~ncharAtrika and saiddhAntika activities in the Tamil country and noted for the first time the connections between them and the developing bauddha mantra-shAstra. We also realized that she also anticipated some observations that we made regarding the early connections between vaikhAnasa-s and kaumAra-s in South India. She suggested that at the ancient heart of Kanchi there was a dyad of temples kumArakoTTam and the urakaM that were built under vaikhAnasa tradition to kArttikeya and viShNu. This was followed historically by a saiddhAntika shaiva temple and a nAstikAlaya shortly there after. Then there was a pA~ncharAtrika temple, but she astutely noted that the preexisting vaikhAnasa archaka-s took over the worship in the pA~ncharAtrika devAlaya. Then finally the kaula shrine of kAmakoTI, the pinnacle of shrIvidyA in the south, was built. While she had performed secular studies of great merit, her kaula practice with its nocturnal visits to the cemetery and secret offerings (indeed she made some observations on kuNDagola that were rather prescient for the age – it struck me that she had a scientific spirit as she showed in her secular life) was outted. She faced a degree of ostracism from many making her secular existence somewhat difficult.

She was sought by a turuShka who was facing abhichAra and she successfully saved him with her pratikriya. The turuShka paid her a handsome sum for her services on account of which she could continue her independent existence. She also defeated some mlechCha-s in arguments who were trying to convert Hindus to the pretamata. The chera mantravAdinI sought her help in a difficult mantra contest with a powerful rival. While successfully helping the cherA, she is said to have been struck by a mysterious dhUmAvatI prayoga; others said it was influenza and yet others blamed her poor food. Her condition defied diagnosis and treatment of Hindu as well as western physicians and she was incapacitated from doing any prayoga herself. She died shortly thereafter at a young age. Her crumbling notebooks in a neat hand record a tale of a towering all-round intellectual who was well beyond her times and way beyond most of her own people – but nothing more aptly illustrates that unseen undercurrent of deeply knowledgeable, scholastic mantra tradition that exists or existed in bhArata.

We were talking about how in school and college R and I had little inclination to write down anything the lecturers said. We typically relied on our memories, even if imperfect, much to the dissatisfaction of the lecturers. ekanetra was somewhat more diligent with his notes, at least in certain subjects. ST on the contrary was most conscientious, writing things down in a neat hand. Some of our lecturers were rather irascible so we appeared to write things down, while we actually filled out our notebooks with graffiti that would have done the megalithic people proud. Thus we kept company of some worthies from the netherworld of our class whose own productions might have made a dadaist proud. While conversing recently we reminisced of those old days and remarked that after all we were supposed to be descendents of those illiterate Arya-s who kept writing out of the Indian peoples mind during the great “Vedic night” that white Indologists inform us about. Instead, our ancestors chose to rather accurately store in their neural “hard disks” texts typically amounting up to 3-5 Mb. Some of these very white Indologists also want us to believe that the graffiti of the IVC was no writing at all. What ever the case, there appears to be a strange dichotomy vis-a-vis writing among the Hindus. The earliest Hindus clearly did not write much or they did have much use for it – usually they simply preferred keeping things in their head. Then, within a hundred years of the appearance of brAhmI we find the literate Hindu to be the norm, writing everything from royal edicts to delicate love letters with his or her tAMbUla-laced spittle for the red ink. Even the much discussed Indus script, which is the center of the fishy (mIn), hare (muyal/cheviyan)-brained theories of Parpola, Wells and others, may not reveal too much if deciphered. Though several ancient civilizations wrote extensive texts, the Indus people chose to remain laconic, for after all in Hindu parlance silence is often a sign of great wisdom. Hence, let us imagine that after all the effort the Indus script was deciphered, all we would mostly learn is some on the whole boring stuff about goods peddled by the merchants and their market value (a possible exception, though still low on information content, would be the copper plates with a hare on them). And, lets for a moment imagine that the Indus civilization was indeed the DMK’s dream come true, a Dravidian one – what would learn about the glories of this lost tamilakam? Precious little would it add to the sanghaM collection, which is already much later than Sanskrit and studded with Indo-Aryan linguistic and cultural loans. No odes or epics to the imaginary tamil kaDavuL, at best we may finally learn the name of the tigmashR^i~Ngin seated in baddhakoNAsana. Indeed we may continue to ask: where are those great, old pre-Aryan literary marvels of the proto-Dravidian tongue? Be it Parpola or Iravatham Mahadevan, they all have to turn to the R^igveda to interpret the Indus seals, other than of course reading the muruku-munching tamil-kaDavul in the circle sign (They fail to tell us which drAviDa-s, other than the Aryanized ones, worship kumAra and which of them call kumAra by that name). Even though Indus people did write, it appears they did not choose to make writing a major medium of expression – much like the eloquently illiterate Arya-s. This is also true of the early tamil-s (not the unreal ones from Lemuria conjured by the Munnetra-s and their miscellaneous followers) – the earliest tamil texts were part of an oral bardic tradition rather than a purely literary one. Thus, the Indus attitude towards writing was not far away from that of the early Indians both of the Arya or the drAviDa variety they simply wrote little even when capable to doing so. But when they did start writing they came up with a rather remarkably elegant script, which, like a viral meme, swept across Asia fighting off competition from the apparently older script of the chIna-s. Now we heard the nirgrantha-s singing its praise with the mantra namo bambhIye liviye [footnote 1] while that shaiva-s declared her to be the very body of the great goddess mAlinI and the bhairava shabdarAshI. Why this happened is certainly a question deserving a genuine historical investigation by Hindus for Hindus.

~o~O~o~

 Dice from the Indus sites, and gaming pieces from Indus (right) and PGW sites (below): games proscribed by the buddha

Thus we were conversing, when suddenly it took a turn to the earliest mentions of a written alphabet in Arya tradition. This lead us to a digression regarding the tathAgata, who in his condemnations of brAhmaNa-s preserves interesting historical information. So we decided to yarn about what the tathAgata had to say about primitive games in bhArata. Very self-righteously and puritanically the tathAgata in the brahma-jAla-sutta takes a swipe at many Astika institutions and customs and puts down brAhmaNa-s and ascetics who while living off alms of the pious play the following eighteen games while the ascetic gotama avoids all of them (in the Pali):
yathA vA paneke bhonto samaNa-brAhmaNA saddhA-deyyAni bhojanAni bhu~njitvA te evarUpaM jUtappamAdaTThAnAnuyogaM anuyuttA viharanti – seyyathIdaM: 1) aTThapadaM dasapadaM; 2) AkAsaM; 3) parihArapathaM; 4) santikaM; 5) khalikaM; 6) ghaTikaM; 7) salAkahatthaM; 8) akkhaM; 9) pa~NgachIraM; 10) va~NkakaM; 11) mokkhachikaM; 12) chi~NgulakaM; 13) pattALLihakaM; 14) rathakaM; 15) dhanukaM; 16) akkharikaM 17) manesikaM 18) yathAvajjaM | iti vA iti eva rUpA jUtappa-mAdaTThAnAnuyogA paTivirato samaNo gotamo.iti |

Let us look at these games to the extent we can understand them: First, we can recognize a famous Arya triad of games in this list: rathakaM= chariot-racing; dhanukaM= Archery; akkhaM= dice. Indeed the coins for the famous Hindu dice game have been found in both the Harappan and Painted-Greyware layers of certain Indian sites along with dice themselves. khalikaM is believed to be another dice game played on a board, most likely resembling the modern snakes and ladders. Indeed such cubical dice have been found in various Indus sites. Now, of the remaining ones, the bauddha commentators explain chi~NgulakaM as: tAla-paNNAdIhi kata~N vAtap-pahArena parib-bhamana– chakka~N |, That is a windmill made from palm leaves that spins when impacted by wind (We remarked to ourselves about having spent many a day playing with chi~Ngulaka-s in school – indeed, we were the descendents of brAhmaNa-s, whom the tathAgata would have dismissed :-). aTTapadaM and dasapadaM seem to be references of some form of chess with 8 and 10 sided grids. The discovery of chess pieces in the Indus sites supports its presence by the time of the tathAgata. AkAsaM is explained as playing board games imagining a board in space. parihArapathaM is a hopscotch-like game. ghaTikam is explained by the nAstika scholars as being gilli-daNDa – which we thought was the national game of India before cricket displaced it :-). salAkahatthaM is a game exploiting pareidolia in which the player dipped his hand in lac or paint and then pressed it on the floor and asked what figure would be formed. pa~NgachIraM is a game of making whistles. va~NkakaM is a game of pulling a plow through hard soil. mokkhachikaM is apparently a game of doing cartwheels or somersaults. pattALLihakaM is a game of measuring out lengths with pieces of palm-leaves. manesikaM is a guessing game. yathAvajjaM is not clearly understood but is was something in which one of the players probably hobbled on one foot while he tried to catch others running about him. Finally, we come to akkharikaM, which all the learned sthaviravAdin-s explain as being a game in which a fellow traces letters in the air or on ones palm when ones eyes are shut and one has to guess what they are. To all this R remarked that, except for the famously manly Arya triad, the old Hindus seemed rather unmanly with their games :-). Indeed, it is stuff like akSharika that has probably predisposed Hindus towards stuff like spelling games she remarked. To which I had to bring to her attention that the tathAgata had already dismissed earlier in this sutta the more violent pastimes of brAhmaNa-s and ascetics such as:
daNDa-yuddhaM muTThi-yuddhaM nibbuddhaM uyyodhikaM balaggaM senA-byuhaM …
These include bouts with quarterstaves, fists, bare-hand martial arts, weapon games, simulations of war marches and fighting in formation. Well, so much for the more manly Hindu pastimes of yore. But the point of this whole digression was that in the game of akSharika the tradition of the nAstika-s provides an early testimony of a script among Hindus.

Now the tAthagata-s and the nirgrantha-s record another interesting tradition regarding scripts. The former mention an ancient Indian script by the name pukkharasAriya, while the latter call this script the puShkarasArI. Now that tathAgatha himself states in his tevIjja sutta that pokkharasAti was a learned brAhmaNa, whom he converts to the nAstika mata. Now it is possible that this puShkarasAdi or an even earlier one mentioned as a great Astika teacher in the shA~NkhAyana AraNyaka was the inventor of a early Indian script known after his name. Tradition also refers to a puShakarasAdi who was grammarian (mentioned by pata~njali) and a maker of a yajurvaidika pATha. This same puShkarasAdi is likely the one cited as an authority in dharmasUtra-s associated with yajurveda tradition. While we are not certain of the identity of this puShkarasAdi with the teacher recorded in the shA~NkhAyana AraNyaka, we suspect he is the fits the profile for being the early innovator of an Indo-Aryan script. Importantly, the phonetic analysis which forms the foundation of saMskR^ita’s grammar would have predisposed an early Hindu thinker to eventually formulate a script. Now, we have a further speculation – the name puShkarasAdi means the one seated on the lotus (from puShkarasad – the lotus seat; also compare with the saMskR^ita word for the jacana: puShkarasAda). This word is also a name of brahma (the one seated on the lotus from which he is described as being born). Hence, we suspect that the term brAhmI itself might have been linked in its very origin with the puShkarasAdi script and then attributed to the deva brahma. The deva is said to have provided the script for recording legal contracts. Thus, the early Hindus, before the “literacy revolution” like their Indus counterparts parts probably used the written mode of expression only for specific purposes like a legal records. Indeed, in this regard we see a gradual increase in the number of allusions to written documents in the dharma texts:
Apastamba/baudhAyana/gautama/vasiShTha dharma sUtra-s (absent-rare)->manu (occasional)-> nArada/bR^ihaspati/yAj~navalkya (common).
Indeed, nArada, while describing the components of dharma, states:
rAjA sapuruShaH sabhyAH shAstraM gaNaka-lekhakau |
hiraNyam agnir udakam aShTA~NgaH sa udAhR^itaH || 1.15

Thus, the eight limbs of dharma are enumerated as: the king with his agents, the court, the shAstra-s, the accountants, *the scribes*, gold, fire and water.

Similarly, bR^ihaspati states:
gaNako gaNayed arthaM likhen nyAyaM cha lekhakaH | 1.1.90ab
The accountant makes financial calculations while the scribe records the legal judgments.

The importance of scribes is very clear here – a clear departure from the dharmasUtra-s and manu. However, in manu and the dharmasUtra-s, whatever allusions are made to writing they are always in the concept of legal documentation, e.g., records of property. We see this feature of Indo-Aryan tradition as being comparable to that of the Indus people – they were both relatively curt and utilitarian with their writing. Again, in relation to the Indus seals, one aspect of manu that might point to some form of marking or record keeping in the context of trade is the mention of the king listing the fixed prices of commodities every 5-14 days and stamping measures, balances and weights with an official examination stamp every 6 months (MDS 8.402-403).

~o~O~o~

So was it writing after all?
In our opinion despite the forceful statements by certain mlechCha indologists, who are plainly involved in subverting the Hindu nation, there is not much doubt that the Indus graffiti was writing after all. Despite dravidianist intentions, Mahadevan et al. and Wells have adduced fairly strongly evidence that it is likely to be a script, though the underlying language(s) might not be known. What is interesting is that it was not used as major form of expression, i.e. comparable to conventional literacy, seen in later Indian tradition (e.g. ashoka’s inscriptions). To reiterate, in this respect it is interesting to note that Indus tradition is not very far from early Indo-Aryan tradition in not using the written mode as the primary form of expression. Indeed, this marks one of the fundamental distinctions of the two old Asiatic civilizations, the Indic and the Sinitic – a feature which continues to dominate the general mindset of the two people to this date – we are are verbal people emphasizing the spoken word while they are a visual people emphasizing what is hard written. But a more mysterious point is what happened to the Indus graffiti beyond the core Indus period – be it the dravidianists, like Mahadevan and Parpola, or the indological rogues headed by the kInAsha and his viTa they have turned to the RV to look for meaning in the scripts or excavate words of the Indus people. In that case how could it have been entirely forgotten during the Vedic night that they propose? In this regard, the vR^iddha of Indian archeology, Brajbhashi Lal, more than 50 years ago made some key observations. He noted that pottery from Indic archeological sites are characterized by certain graffiti. This graffiti is rare in the early neolithic sites of India. But it becomes more frequent in the pre-Harappan sites of the Indus and blends with the Indus script in the core Indus period. In the peri- and post- Harappan chalcolithic sites of India it persists with a distribution extending to Bihar, southern Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Finally, during the megalithic sweep of the southern peninsula the graffiti appears on abundantly on potsherds from various sites in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and in the later stages co-occurs with brAhmI script characters in these sites. Indeed, from such a base it spreads even wider appearing outside the peninsula in Shrilanka and Thailand. Thus, the graffiti appears to have spread from north to south temporally. Lal’s analysis of this graffiti suggested as high of 89% of the megalithic graffiti symbols being traceable to the chalcolithic and Harappan layers and that 85% of the symbols from the latter are observable in the megalithic graffiti. If we accept these values then it is clear that aspects of the Indus script survived long enough to interact with brAhmI.

Indeed when one analyzes the early brAhmI inscriptions from megalithic sites in India and Lanka they routinely co-occur with graffiti. The dravidianist Mahadevan claims that the use of these symbols especially in sites in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Lanka means that the Indus people were Dravidians – they continued to use the script after being pushed south by the Arya-s. What he seems to conveniently forget is that brAhmI, which is found in these inscriptions to encode Tamil, is also used to encode Indo-Aryan languages and was primarily developed for the latter. So, the presence of Indus symbols in megalithic south India does not mean that they were used to solely represent Tamil or a related Dravidian all the way through. Whatever the case, the main point to note is that the graffiti bearing the Indus signs or other graffiti symbols occurs in-line with the clearly readable brAhmI characters. For example, in the figure above in the two tamil inscriptions they occur immediately after the brAhmI characters or they are even embedded in the middle of the brAhmI characters. Now this means that they are two be read together collinearly. To me this is one of the strongest bits of evidence that the graffiti is actually a form of a script – given the overlap of the symbols in these graffiti with the Indus script it might also be taken as indirect evidence for survival of the verbal values of the Indus script, in some form, down to this period. We believe it is not a coincidence that these symbols remain the completely undeciphered aspect of these brAhmI inscriptions. When we take this factor into account we are faced with notable problems with respect to certain decipherments.

For example, in the above 7 character inscription from Tissamaharama, Shrilanka (approximately coeval with ashoka’s brAhmI edicts) the first three characters are clear-cut brAhmI and can be read as li-ra-ti. The next two characters are not given any sound values as they are graffiti signs. Then the last two are read as mu-ri, with the peculiar 7th character being apparently the retroflex ‘r’ seen in Shrilankan inscriptions. Now, the dravidianists have read the text as tiraLi || muRi with an inversion of the direction of writing around the two graffiti signs. We suspect this is a rather artificial interpretation which has been forced on the texts to obtain words that make sense in Tamil – though there is difference of opinion of what tiraLi muRi actually meant in old Tamil. We suspect that the real meaning is lost due to the inability to read the two graffiti signs. Interestingly, even the graffiti appears to be equipped with brAhmI-like vowel diacritics in this case. This intermingling of brAhmI with graffiti signs might have a bearing on the Indus script, where some signs there are common while others are rather rare. This suggests that even in the Indus script there was a subset of the symbols with a more standardized sound value like the brAhmI characters, and others that might have functioned just like the graffiti co-occuring with brAhmI in the later period. Indeed, there are intriguing features of certain signs in the Indus script that appear to resemble later Indian scripts such as conjunct characters and vowel diacritics, which might favor such an interpretation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Footnote 1: The jaina-s give us the important information in their savAyA~Nga sUtra 46 that:
bambhi.enam liviye ChAyAlisaM mAuy-akkharA; the brAhmi script had 46 characters.

During prayoga one first recites the vAmadeva mantra from the pa~nchabrahma series. Then he installs the fire on the sthaNDila as per the tradition of the atharvan-s. There after reciting the tumburu sUkta make oblations of drumstick and tumburu saMidh-s dipped in ghee.

Then he makes the four bhaginI yAja-s of ghee with AV-P 20.21.6:
udojiShThAM sahasyAM jayantIm aparAjitAm |
lakShmIr yAH puNyAH kalyANIs tA asyai savitaH suva ||

Then he stands under the tumburu tree and offers tarpaNA-s to tumburu with the above sUkta and the bhaginI-s with the above mantra (x 4). He may then prepare the secret tumburu drugs.

This sUkta is of considerable importance for multiple reasons:
1) It helps understand the origin of the central deity of the vAma-srotas, tumburu rudra. Most modern Hindus unacquainted with the shAstra-s of the vAmasrotas are not familiar with this once popular system. Hence, tumburu to them usually stands for the commonly known gandharva, who is frequently mentioned in the rAmAyaNa and the mahAbhArata. However, the evidence for a well developed worship of tumburu as the deity of the vAmAsrotas is apparent from number of texts. The viShNudharmottara suggests that he was being worshiped with his four sisters in the gupta era. The worship of tumburu and his sisters is also attested in the nAstika ma~njushriya mUlakalpa and a fragmentary Gilgit manuscript discovered by SDV. An early jaina yantra the vardhamAna vidyA has taken up the chaturbhaginI and replaced tumburu with the jina. His worship appears to have been fairly widespread in Asia, even if scattered, till around the middle of the 1200s. After that it has largely declined and only maintained with the srotAmsi shaiva krama. Nevertheless, the origin of the tumburu as an emanation of rudra was rather poorly understood, given the apparently older presence of tumburu the gandharva with whom he shares a penchant for music. The AV-P sUkta shows that the origin of the connection between tumburu and rudra is a much older one than the classical vAmasrotas texts and might have even predated the eponymous gandharva.

While the musical connection of tumburu is not apparent in the veda, there are other links which establish a continuity with the deity of the vAmasrotas. In the veda tumburu is a sylvan form of rudra associated with cures against diseases, which is an ancestral trait of the Indo-European rudra-like deities. Indeed, this trait is stressed in the vAmasrotas, where rituals to tumburu and the chaturbhagini are stated as being a counter to disease.
e.g.:
muchyate cha sadA rogair mR^ityurUpair durAsadaiH || VT 92cd

shatajapto jalenApi tato vA muchyate sadA |
vyAdhighAta samidbhis tu vyAdhinAtyantapIDitaH ||
aShTottara shatenaiva AhutInAM na saMshayaH |
kShIrAktena tu deveshi rogI rogAd vimuchyate || VT 183-184

Further, in the AV-P the tumburu hymn occurs in the larger context of a number medical applications, including the administration of the oShadhi-s for the treatment of tertian malaria. This is reminiscent of the kashyapa saMhitA where rudra is invoked before treatment of malaria. Thus, it is clear that the worship of tumburu rudra has an hidden history from the AV period, with the shaiva AtharvaNa tumburu prayoga vidhAna establishing the link with the vAmasrotas.

The tumburu tree

2) This AV-P allusion offers the first reference to a celebrated dyad of plants that rise to considerable prominence in classical Hindu medicine- tumburu and shigru. The use of samidh-s from the tumburu tree are well-known in the early atharvavedic shaiva tradition: The uchChuShma kalpa of the AV parishiShTha-s (AV-par 36.4.2) mentions the use of these samidh-s in uchChATana rituals. But the use in the AV-P text is clearly of a medical nature. This may be compared to the nighANThu sUtra-s regarding these plants in classical Hindu medicine where they often occur together:
tumburuH pitta-kR^id vAta-kR^imi daurgandhya nAshanaH |
shigrus tIkShNa laghur grAhI vahni-kR^it kapha-vAtajit |

Thus, the tumburu plant is described as being an augmenter of pitta, destroyer of parasitic infestation, a suppressor of bad body odor and a counter for the vAta. The shighru plant is described as “light”, “sharp”, a constrictor of the gut, an augmenter of digestion and a counter to kapha and vAta. It is interesting to note that in classical medicine these plants are both described as counters to vAta. This should be seen in light of the term “vAtIkAra” in the tumburu hymn – it appears that there was an ancient connection between the prescription of these plants and problems of “vAta”, even-though the tri-humoral theory was hardly accepted in its classical form in atharvanic medicine. There is no doubt that both these plants appear to have considerable promise in medicine. The nutritional value of the drumstick is well-known. However, it would be of particular interest to further develop certain key compounds from this plant: moriginine, spirochin and niazimicin. Likewise, several compounds from tumburu like tridecanonchelerythrine, conifegerol, canthin-6-one, asarinin, dictamnine and skimmianine are of potential interest.

As for her three faces,
The face to the right is white and smiling,
That to the left is red and fierce,
That in the center is bluish-blade and wrathful.
Her black hair stands on end,
Her three eyes shine like the light of the sun;
Her nose has the beautiful wrinkles of a wrathful deity,
Her mouth gapes like a kuNDa for an all consuming fire-offering,
Her numerous teeth are like the Himalayan range,
Her tongue makes a terrible huDDukkAra,
Her mane sends forth sparks as from the kAlAgni,
Her roar resounds like thunder in the sky.
The upper part of her bluish-black body is adorned
With the moist, ash-grey skin of an elephant and of a human being;
On the lower garment, consisting of a moist tiger-skin,
Is attached the skin of a fierce bear.
Reddish-yellow venomous snakes are intertwined,
Forming writhing necklaces;
She is adorned with a three-fold akShamAlA
Of dry, moist, and blood-dripping skulls.
As for her terrifying attributes,
In her top right hand she holds a zhing phyug (?)
It is adorned with a crown of silk of various colors,
Fluttering in the expanse of invisible space.
In her top left hand a swastika
Encompasses the secret space of the treasury of her heart.
Her middle right hand brandishes a sword
To the sky, like a flaming weapon.
Her middle left hand holds a trident
While a great drum resounds like thunder.
Her lower right hand clasps a pointed dagger;
Its triangular blade is thrust into the heart
Of those who have perverted views.
Her lower left hand holds a bowl
Filled to the brim with billowing blood.
As for the way she places her legs:
In order to subdue the four demons of delusion
And perfect the four kinds of forceful action,
She haughtily draws in one leg and stretches out the other.
As for her mule,
The bluish-black tips of its ears are adorned with silk,
Naga kings are her reins,
Male and female vetAla-s are made into her saddle,
The still-moist skin of a corpse is her saddle cloth,
The saddle-strap is fixed with a hundred thousand
Pieces of cloth taken from corpses.
The stirrup-bands are made from the still-moist skin of corpses
To which are attached stirrups made of skulls.
The four hoofs of her mule
Are supported by the Four Great Kings of the Quarters.

She is surrounded by a entourage of wangmo goddesses who correspond to the regents of the 27 nakShatra-s.

For the sake of removing persistent illness affecting certain sAdhaka-s living in the vihAra, the Lama decided to perform a ritual to hayagrIva. After a homa with apUpa-s called “torma” in Tibetan, ghee and some secret plants the sAdhya-s (those needing treatment) were led to the kitchen of the vihAra. There great fires were set up and being exalted further by blowing air. They were surrounded by a circular maNDala drawn using colored powder. On one stove was a cauldron with a boiling potion in it. On the other stove, stones were being heated till they were glowing red. The Lama took his seat near the stove and began muttering the hayagrIva mUlamantra [Footnote 1]. An uttara-sAdhaka lifted a red-hot stone with a pair of tongs and put it on the open palm of the Lama. As soon as he did so there was a puff of smoke and fire rising upwards. He then twirled the red-hot stone over the heads of the sAdhya-s and threw it into the potion in cauldron on the other fire, with much hissing and boiling over of the liquid. This was repeated five times. Then he dipped a juniper twig into the cauldron and sprinkled each of the sAdhya-s. Strikingly, the Canadian examined the Lama’s hands and found no signs of burns.

While hayagrIva (or his nAstika reflex paramAshva) is an important heruka figure with his yoginI mArIchI or vajravArAhI in several mantrayAna sAdhana-s transmitted to Tibet, the ritual reported by des Jardins is from the Bön system. This is of interest because it often contains an early layer of transmission of Indic memes, distinct from that seen in the four main Tibetan bauddha schools, i.e., Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug. While hayagrIva entered the nAstika maNDala-s before the yoga and yoginI tantra-s, right in the charyA tantra-s, many of the Sanskrit sources of this layer have been lost due to the Islamic depredations of India. This layer is also most likely to have a close link to the bhUta-srotas of the shaiva mantra-mArga and earlier pA~ncharAtrika hayagrIva sAdhana-s. Hence, it is of interest to study the mantra sAdhana-s of hayagrIva (called Tamdrin in Tibetan) among the Bönpo and material pertaining to this devatA in the hagiography of Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche (gShen-rab mi-bo) who is considered the Adibuddha of the Bönpo.

It should be noted that hayagrIva represents one of the early theriomorphic vibhava-s of viShNu, who predates the nR^isiMha form. Thus, we have an early macranthropic description of viShNu as hayagrIva which is preserved in both the mahAbhArata and the harivaMsha. The rise of nR^isiMha appears to have displaced hayagrIva to a degree in the pA~ncharAtrika texts. Nevertheless, the older presence of hayagrIva (as in the nArAyaNIya section of the epic pA~ncharAtra) and his connection to the vAjasaneyin form of the sun suggests that he was important in the early layer of the pA~ncharAtrika system (it should be remembered that the pA~ncharAtrika-s explicitly associated their tradition with the vAjasaneyI saMhitA). An examination of the macranthropic hayagrIva, which might also be compared to the description of the ashvamedha horse in the veda, provides an early witness for key iconographic elements, several of which continued to survive in the nAstika manifestations of the devatA:
Mbh 12.347
jahau nidrAm atha tadA veda-kAryArtham udyataH |
aishvaryeNa prayogeNa dvitIyaM tanum AsthitaH ||
sunAsikena kAyena bhUtvA chandraprabhas tadA |
kR^itvA hayashIraH shubraM vedAnAM AlayaM prabhuH ||
tasya mUrdhA samabhAvad dyauH sa-nakShatra-tArakA |
keshash chAsyAbhavan dIrghA raver aMshu saMaprabhaH ||
karNAv AkAshapAtAle lalATaM bhUtadhArinI |
ga~NgA sarasvatI shroNyau bhruvAv AstAM mahodadhI ||
chakShuShI soma-sUryau te nAsA saMdhyA punaH smR^itA |
OMkAras te atha saMskAro vidyuj jihvA cha nirmitA ||
dantAsh cha pitaro rAjan somapA iti vishrutAH |
goloko brahmalokash cha oShTAv AstAM mahAtamanaH ||
grIvA chAsyAbhavad rAjan kAlarAtrir guNottarA |
etad dhayashiraH kR^itvA nAnAmUrtibhir AvR^itaM ||
antardadhau sa vishvesho vivesha cha rasAM prabhuH |

Thus, viShNu assuming his second form, i.e., that of hayagrIva is supposed to have attacked the demons madhu and kaiTabha and slain them in a fierce battle. A similar account is given in the harivaMsha regarding this battle were viShNu’s hayagrIva form is described as encompassing all the gods (HV appendix 1.41.1421-130):
stUyamAnash cha vibudhaiH siddhair munivarais tathA |
sasmAra vipulaM dehaM harir hayashiro mahAn ||
kR^itvA vedamayaM rUpaM sarva-devamayaM vapuH |
shiro-madhye mahAdevo brahmA tu hR^idaye sthitaH |
Aditya-rashmayo vAlAsh chakShuShI shashi-bhAskarau ||
ja~Nghe tu vasavaH sAdhyAH sarvasaMdhiShu devatAH |
jihvA vaishvAnaro devaH satyA devI sarasvatI ||
maruto varuNash chaiva jAnudeshe vyavasthitAH |
evaM kR^itvA tathA rUpaM surANAm adbhutaM mahat ||
asuraM pIDayAm Asa krodhAd raktAnta-lochanaH |

Of note in these accounts is the role of viShNu in recovering the lost veda. This might be compared to the legend of the vAjasaneyin-s where the veda lost by their founder yAj~navalkya due to his teacher’s curse was restored to him by the sun in a horse-headed form. This motif also occurs in an inverted form in the legend of the dAnava hayagrIva who stole the veda-s from brahma before he was killed by viShNu and the shruti was restored. This solar connection is also evident in the iconography of hayagrIva in the above accounts – his horse mane is described as being comprised of the solar rays (also related to the name of his shaktI mArIchI). Another aspect made explicit in the version found in the harivaMsha is his wrathful nature with fiery red eyes. This aspect is particularly emphasized in his nAstika manifestation.

Both his wrathful aspect as well as that of removing ignorance aspect are clearly present in the early charyA tantra-s of the nAstika-s which appears to have been lost in their Sanskrit original. Some examples of texts translated by the chInAchArya-s, like Yixing, might be considered in this regard. The first is a translation of a massive collection of sAdhana-s by AchArya atigupta for instructing the chIna-s known as the dhAraNI saMgraha made in 653 CE. The 6th chapter of atigupta’s dhAranI is largely devoted to hayagrIva sAdhana-s. Here a mantra of hayagrIva is given which might be reconstructed in Sanskrit as:
namo .advidyA-bhakShakAya grasa grasa vapa vapa sphuTa sphuTa grasa hayagrIvAya svAhA | mahAbalAya sarva-j~nAna-netre svAhA |

The last part of this chapter has a dIkSha vidhi with the hayagrIva maNDala, where he is identified with the bodhisattva avalokiteshvara. A study of this maNDala suggesting that is bauddha appropriation of an Astika dIkSha ritual. In the middle of the maNDala an image of hayagrIva is place. In the eastern quarter one of the ekAdashamukha avalokiteshvara is placed. In the northern quarter the image of the aShTabhuja amoghapAsha is placed. In the south the the 8 nAgarAja-s are paced. The sAdhaka should enter the bodhi maNDala from the [western side] and perform pUjA for hayagrIva concentrating on avalokiteshvara. Then in the course of the pUjA the bodhisattva-s with siddhi-s will manifest. Another set of Chinese translations of mantra texts from the charyA layer identified by the Dutch scholar van Gulik have mantra-s and rituals (Here we are not attempting to reconstruct them in completion but only provide the translations). One text is translated as the “Methods (upAya) and rules (vidhi) for incantations (mantrANi) and offerings (Ahuti) to effect the manifestation (AviShkaraNa ) of the great fierce king, the holy hayagrIva”. This tAntrika text is of some importance to our current study because it provides background for the Bön rituals for hayagrIva. It has the mantra:
“hayagrIvAya svAhA || Able to destroy all the obstacles of mAra! It is through the upAya of karuNa that he yet manifests a krodha rUpa.”

These are paralleled by the nAstika hayagrIva sAdhana in the Gilgit manuscripts wherein vaDavAmukha hayagrIva is invoked in an idol made of sandalwood at whose base is placed the triad of vajrapANi, lokeshvara and avalokiteshvara. The use of the term vaDavAmukha in this text offers a link to the descriptions of hayagrIva in the mahAbhArata:
ahaM hayagrIvo bhUtvA samudre pashcimottare |
pibAmi suhutaM havyaM kavya~n cha shraddhayAnvitaM || Mbh. 12.340

As also the tale in which the wrath of viShNu made the ocean salty:
nArAyaNo lokahitArthaM vaDavAmukho nAma purA maharShir babhUva| Mbh 12.342.60ab

In the Gilgit manuscript the mantra of hayagrIva is stated as destroying rival abhichArika mantra-s (para-vidyA saMbhakShaNa) and has the phrases such as “khAda khAda para-mantraM… para-mantra vinAshaka… tan sarvan vaDavAmukhena nikR^intaya phaT” etc. This hR^idaya mantra is said to have been expounded by avalokiteshvara as is clear from the statement: “tasmai namaskR^itva idam AryAvalokiteshvara mukhodgIrNaM hayagrIva nAma parama hR^idayam AvartiShyAmi”. As the great vaiShNava pointed out to us it might be noted that this statement is comparable to a mantra text for the worship of nIlakaNTha (i.e. rudra) recorded by the Indian AchArya vajrabodhi in the siddhaM script in the chInadesha: “tasmai namaskR^itva idam AryAvalokiteshvara bhaShitaM nIlakaNTha nAma”. Here again avalokiteshvara is described as the expounder of the hR^idaya for the worship of nIlakaNTha. This, suggests that several astika devata-s were being incorporated into the tAthagata-mata as their mantra-s now have the sanction of being expounded by the bodhisattva himself. Subsequently, they were identified with the bodhisattva himself.

Together, these suggest that the worship of hayagrIva was very prominent in the period around 500-700 CE in India. The nAstika-s adopted and transmitted hayagrIva along with several several other deities, like nIlakaNTha rudra, as suggested by the Gilgit and Chinese texts. It is possible that some of the tAntrika material of the Bön texts derive from such transmissions of the sAdhana of Hindu deities via the medium of the tAthagatha-s.

Now let us take a brief look at the Bön texts themselves. In the hagiography of Tönpa Shenrab we find a detailed account of how he taught the sAdhana of hayagrIva at kAilAsa parvata, to help sAdhaka-s ward of vighna-s that were difficult to conquer. He did this by reciting the mUla-mantra of hayagrIva [Footnote 1] and emanated a nirmANakAya as flaming red hayagrIva in the pratyAlIDa pose with two hands and holding a blazing sword. He had the green horse-head and was ornamented in gold and was flying in the air emitting rays like those of the sun (a trait reminiscent of the earliest accounts of hayagrIva found in the bhArata) that subjugate hostile beings. He then emanates hosts of bhUta-s, mAtR^i-s, yakSha-s and gaNa-s. The main Bön text compendium that deals with hayagrIva (including the above mentioned burning stone ritual) come as a triadic package that combines his sAdhana-s with those of vajrapAni and garuDa. This compendium includes rituals for removal of poisons in ritual kShetra-s, individual rites to the above triad of devatA-s, followed by a rite to sipe gyAlmo, the primary shakti of the Bön system [Footnote 2]. Regarding the burning stone rite these texts offer the following narrative. To benefit sAdhaka-s in the kaliyuga, the great yogin padmAkara went from the Kham region of Tibet to the region near bhArata to subjugate the ghosts known as srin living in the shmashAna-s. There he encountered a terrible lord of the ghosts known as the one-eyed Hadha. He took the form of a nine-headed boar and had a nine-headed rAkShasa on his back. Wandering around he spread greed and lust from his noses and mouths, madness and poison from his eyes, and warfare from his heads. But padmAkara invoked the mantra-s hayagrIva, vajrapAni and garuDa in succession who completely subjected this ghost. The ritual which is instituted in light of this event was the burning stone ritual narrated above in which all the three devatA-s are invoked in the actual ritual.

A striking feature of this ritual is the minimal involvement of bauddha elements and the invocation of these deities by themselves. This reminds one of the early texts in which the boddhisattva avalokiteshvara is an expounder of mantra-s to the old deities. We suggest that the early layer of the Bön system involved transmission of these elements of Astika ritual perhaps via the medium to the nAstika teachers who presented them as a being expounded by the boddhisattva-s. However, the striking tAntrika stotra to sipe gyAlmo [footnote 2] and her tremendous prominence in the Bön world raises the possibility that there might have been a direct transmission by Astika-s that has now been forgotten and bauddhaized at a later point. If this were the case, then the counter-illness and poison rituals might suggest a connection to the shaiva bhUta-srotas in which hayagrIva was a deity and the garuDa-srotas. Indeed the bhUta-tantras and garuDa-tantra-s have tended to have a certain association with each other as suggested by later shaiva texts of these systems. Then could have been transmitted as a package, and the vajrapAni could very well be indra who was prominent in the early gAruDa system. As circumstantial support for this, one might consider the Tibetan rAmAyaNa which appears to be largely independent in its transmission of the bauddha version and appears early in the Dunhuang texts, which was temporally closer to the apparent period of transmission to the Bön.
………………………
Footnote 1: From the Bön text this mantra appears to be:
vsauH OM vajra rakSha krodha rava rava hayagrIva huM phaT ||
It appears to be a nAstika distortion of the mantra found in shaiva and vaiShNava tAntrika contexts:
OM shrIM hlauM OM namo bhagavate hayagrIvAya rava rava rakSha rakSha huM phaT svAhA ||

Footnote 2: sipe gyAlmo is a very interesting deity who has been poorly understood. Superficially her iconography with the ashvatara vAhana is reminiscent of the iconography of shrI devI (Palden Lhamo) among the Tibetans. However, the origin of sipe gyAlmo is very distinct from shrI devI and she appears to have influenced the later depictions of shrI devI resulting the convergence observed today. The Bön compendium mentioned above records a remarkable stotra to sipe gyAlmo translated from a now lost tantra. This stotra has little bauddha about it, and appears to be directly derived from a shAkta-shaiva tAntrika system. A key feature in the iconography of this great Bön deity is her relationship to the trividyA of the pashchimAmnAya, which presents a combination of the shakti-trayaM. But in the pashchimAmnAya the three faces stand for aparA, parAparA and parA; however, in the case of sipe gyAlmo the faces are depicted in the order of the three goddess of the pUrvAmnAya (trika) parA, parAparA and aparA. It is not entirely surprising that the bauddha-s have made some attempts to demonize her.

The original verse on this umAsha~Nkara krIDA is:
kastvaM ? shUlI, mR^igaya bhiShajaM, nIlakaNThaH priye.aham |
kekAm ekAM kuru, pashupatir naiva dR^iShTe viShANe ||
sthANur mugdhe, na vadati tarur jIviteshaH shivAyAH |
gachChATavyAm iti hatavachAH pAtu vash-chandrachUDaH ||

~*~*~*~
Recently my pitAshrI inquired about an elementary problem presented by one of the greatest mathematicians of our tradition, bhAskara, who graced the seuna yAdava court. While it is a simple quadratic problem it has a certain beauty in its versification in the mAlinI meter. We showed it to a few friends to take some delight in the educational devices in devabhASha. Then it struck us that it would be a good test for R’s legendary IQ. She took a few minutes with the saMskR^ita, but not with the mathematics – we think her abilities are undiminished on the whole :-)
ali-kula-dala-mUlam mAlatIm yAtam aShTau nikhila-navama-bhAgAsh cha alinI bhR^i~Ngam ekam |
nishi parimala-lubdham padma-madhye niruddham pratiraNati raNantam brUhi kAnte ali-saMkhyAm ||

The square root of 1/2 a cluster of bees translocated to a mAlatI creep, there after went 8/9ths of the total number bees, remaining was a one queen bee, which buzzed to the other remaining drone which was trapped in the midst of a lotus that closed for the night. Tell me dear lady the total count of bees (bhAskara addressing his daughter lIlAvatI).

The answer to it may be obtained among other ways by setting the total number of bees=8*x^2 and solving the ensuing quadratic: 4*x^2-9*x-9=0
Hence, the ali-saMkhyA = 72

Through the period of our existence we spent some time trying to understand kAvya and nATya and reached certain conclusions we felt were of particular importance. Not only is this understanding central to appreciating kAvya and nATya but also in general trying to understand Indian artistic tradition. After I had reached my conclusions I realized that two other people had been laboring along similar tracks, albeit from very different directions and without any intersection what so ever. So I must mention their efforts, though I must stress that whatever similarity between what I say here and their work is convergent. The first of them is Bharat Gupt who expounded these ideas in his book titled: “Dramatic Concepts – Greek and Indian” (I would recommend an independent study of Gupt’s work because he is one of the few Hindus with a firm grasp of the Greek language in addition to the devabhASha). The second person is the neurobiologist VS Ramachandran who has made considerable progress in studying synesthesia and its relationship to aesthetic endeavors.

The Christianized West sees the Greek theater as one of the important precursors of its modern culture and as a direct ancestor of its theatrical traditions. What is missed as a result of this equation is the real nature of the Greek theater because it, unlike modern Western society, was a product of heathen sensibilities, just like its Hindu sister culture. The key point underplayed by modern Western treatments is that the Greek theater, like its Arya counter part, was not merely for the enjoyment of men but also for the gods. This is what Gupt calls hieropraxis (the sacred drama). This element is very clear in the nATyashAstra and the fact that through the centuries the chief patrons of nATya was the Arya orthropraxy, both in its smArta and sectarian tAntrika manifestations. The nATyashAstra as we have it is a composite post-Vedic text, but the discerning eye can easily make out the layers within it, some of which were clearly coeval with the veda. This makes it clear that the nATyashAstra and the Greek theater indeed descend from a common Indo-Greek ancestor, which also shares several unique innovations within the broader Indo-European world, such as similar structure of their epic narratives. The nATyashAstra opens with a statement that for the use and instruction of all the four varNa-s, prajApati collected the essences of the veda to compose the nATyaveda: the R^ik supplied the chants, the sAman the songs, the yajur the acting (in the manner of the adhvaryu’s ritual actions) and the atharvan the rasa (in the manner of the atharvan extracting the rasa-s of oShadhI-s). After this explanation the nATyashAstra lists the lineage of transmission of the theatrical lore (indeed even pANini mentions the nATyasUtra-s in his aShTAdhyAyi) similar to the transmission of other lore like the philosophy of the upaniShad-s or Vedic recitations. This clearly establishes the hieropraxic nature of the Hindu theater.

A memory of the oldest layer of the Hindu theater is given thereafter in the nATyashAstra (NS 1.64 onwards). The first play to be staged by bharata was a depiction of the deva’s conquest of the dAnava-s during the glorious indra-dhvaja festival. During this the dAnava-s led by virUpAkSha decided to disrupt the drama by stirring up the vighna-s with their mAyA powers. As a result the actors lost their speech, movements and memory and the director was knocked down. Seeing this indra was infuriated and lifting the indra-dhvaja or jarjari as a quarter-staff he fell upon the daitya-s and vighna-s and smashed them with it. Thus, did indra save the original drama, and that is why his staff is worshiped as the protector of the drama. This play linked to the period of the primacy of indra clearly is coeval with the veda and is an account of ancient plays that were held in open air theaters with the worship of the indra-dhvaja. However, some surviving dAnava-s are said to have continued their attacks on the open-air plays. So prajApati directed vishvakarman to build a nATyashAlA and approached indra and the other deva-s to take station in its various parts in order to protect it: The nATya enclosure is protected by soma, the directions by the lokapAla-s, the inter-directions by the marut-s, the dressing rooms by mitra, the space within the building by varuNa, the ritual altar by agni, the sides of the stage by indra. His thunderbolt is made to guard the enclosure of the clowns, while a daNDa of yama and a shUla on top of it are erected in front of the nATyashAla to protect it. The jarjara is installed with the vajra in it. In its nodes indra is installed. In its top part prajApati is installed. In its second section rudra is installed. In its third section viShNu is installed. In its fourth section kumAra is installed. In the portion affixed to the ground the sarpa-s are installed. Further deities are worshiped in other parts and indra is invoked to protect the hero of the play and sarasvatI the heroine. The beginning of the nATya is accompanied by the worship of musical instruments, the pole of indra and the deva-s occupying the different sections of the theater house.

This arrangement installation of deva-s in the nATyashAlA presents an obvious comparison (as has been previously described by a few authors like Ghosh, Kuiper and Lidova) to the organization of the yAga-shAlA, with the yUpa as a cognate of the jarjari. Indeed, the nATyashAstra makes no secret of it by repeatedly stating:
yaj~nena saMmitaM hy etad ra~Nga daivata-pUjanam | (1.123ab; 3.97ab)
i.e. the worship of the deva-s in the theater is similar to the performance of a yaj~na.
Or
yaj~navid yaj~na-yoge tu nartako .abhinaye smR^itaH | (27.65cd)
Here an ritualist expert is described as being an assessor of the ritual associated with the drama.

The connection of theatrics with the ritual of yaj~na is not merely a superficial one but goes right into the heart of what we had outlined before as central to the experience of yaj~na, i.e. the synesthetic experience. It is this experience that the nATyashAstra terms rasa (we have only seen Gupt recognize this in modern discourse). Indeed the Hindus recognize rasa-s as central to all artistic experience. For example, the chitra-sUtra-s on drawing and painting preserved in the viShNudharmottara mention that they are supposed to produce the experience of rasa-s in the beholder. This is reiterated by king bhoja-deva in his samarA~NgaNA-sUtradhAra, who also mentions that sculpture and constructions (like a properly made house) should evoke rasa-s. Thus, the common denominator of all experiences pf these artistic expressions are linked to the experience of rasa that we encounter in kAvya (which itself while differentiated in later Hindu tradition directly descends from the vaidika mantra poetry, an epitome of early synesthetic experience. However, note that the nATyashAstra entirely recognizes this continuity).

The importance of this synesthetic experience of rasa for sAdhana was well-appreciated by the early shaiva-s and vaiShNava-s and like many other elements was borrowed from them by the tAthAgata-s. This experience was incorporated in the pAshupata practice, as the experience of theater became rather important for them. With the kaula reconfiguration of the early bhairava and yogini tantra-s, the aesthetic experience became central to their sAdhana as the devata-s of the kula-chakra are conceptualized as being in the sense organs and as being gratified by the experience of the senses. Here the synesthetic experience is the equivalent of the unity of the kula deities in kuleshvarI, as a reversal of the emanation process. Hence, the great kaula thinker abhinavagupta gives one of the most clear exposition of the role of rasa in sAdhana. He clarifies that the aesthetic experience is not simply for an individual’s instruction but is actually equivalent to the high experience of sAdhana by allowing the universal or generalized experience beyond the limited sense of I. In his explanation of rasa, abhinavagupta tries to bring out a subtle point. He states that when one experiences a piece of art, like kAvya or its expression as a nATaka then one has a transcendent experience i.e. an experience that is not limited to that of the individual or the situation described in the kAvya, but extending to ones own self and incorporating the priors from ones own past experiences. This, he terms the generalized experience, and differentiates it from a cognate real life situation because in that case one experiences a direct emotion with respect to objects of the situation. Indeed, the generalized experience of rasa allows the rasika to enjoy a spectrum of emotions, many of which would be rather negative if actually experienced in a real life situation rather than via the actor on stage or from the reading or hearing of a text.

This last point is important because it establishes the relationship between rasa of the Arya-s and catharsis of the yavana-s. Aristotle in countering his teacher Plato’s understanding of poetry presents the term in his work on the theater known as Poetics. Here he explains that, as against Plato’s opinion, the experience of the poetry or theater has a purifying effect by fostering the “controlled” experience of emotion. This allows an sense of relief (since Aristotle is primarily dealing with tragic situations with negative emotions) relative to the real world, where one is very caught up with ones own experience of the emotion. This suggests to us that the hieropraxic drama of the common ancestor of Greek and Arya culture had a notable element of catharsis and also another element that might be interpreted in light of rasa, i.e. the Greek term ekstasis. This latter term may be viewed as a semantic cognate of chamatkAra, i.e. astonishment, which is used by number of Hindu literary critics. While the ancestral culture recognized this experience as a key element of drama and poetry, it clearly did not have an advanced theory for it. Instead, this theory was independently developed by the Arya-s and the yavana-s. In the yavana world the theoretical framework did not go very far and appears to have ended with a relatively simple attempt at characterizing it as catharsis by Aristotle. That Plato had a rather rudimentary idea of the situation suggests that it emerged relatively late and Aristotle probably was the first to understand it among the yavana-s. In contrast, among the Arya-s it had a rather early and elaborate form in the rasa sUtra-s (NS chapter 6). In fact even the nATyashAstra already records a commentary on the rasa sUtra-s. However, the proper interpretation of this theoretical framework was not easily grasped by all Hindu intellectuals. For example, it appears to us that bhaTTa lollaTa, the Kashmirian predecessor of abhinavagupta, had a relatively simplistic understanding of rasa when he describes it as being an “upachita” of sthAyibhAva-s. Now the word upachita is difficult to precisely translate or rather interpret. Usually it means “increase”. In this case it appear that lollaTa means that the rasa is the accentuation of the basic emotion (sthAyibhAva) and its consequences. This in a sense mirrors Aristotle’s explanation of catharsis as resulting from poetry/theater magnifying a emotion relative what one might have personally experienced. But there were multiple Astika and nAstika theorists who understood brilliant insights of the nATyashAstra more deeply, though they might have not entirely agreed on the fine points. This group includes dharmakIrti, bhaTTa nAyaka, king bhoja-deva and abhinavagupta. Of these, abhinava alone had the deepest description of the rasa phenomenon, keeping in line with his similar display of depth while analyzing the kaula mArga or dhvani.

This deeper theoretical analysis and description of the synesthetic nature of the experience of kAvya/nATya beyond its simple expression in the framework of catharsis of Aristotle was the point where the the Arya poetics and theater diverged and went beyond the yavana counterpart. This view is reinforced by the answer to the question: Why rasa? An examination of the original nATyashAstra shows that the very choice of the word is an expression of the synesthetic nature. The rasika can hear or see/read kAvya/nATya, but by using the word for a sensory experience that is completely distinct from those two, i.e. rasa for taste, the rasa-sUtra-s suggest that the experience is synesthetic. Indeed, in explaining this abhinavagupta uses the term carvaNa (compared to enjoying the taste of food while chewing it). That this idea stems straight from the nATyashAstra can be seen by examining the sUtra-s and their commentary laid out in NS 6.32. It explains that just as the enjoyment of tasty food comes from the melding of the individual tastes of various herbs and condiments, likewise the enjoyment of kAvya/nATya stems from the admixture of experiences of the different emotions portrayed by the text or actors. This is termed rasa, which abhinavagupta commenting on the text clarifies as a cross-sensory, generalized experience. Given this remarkable analysis of abhinavagupta 1000 years ago, and that of the rasa-sUtra-s probably 2000 years before him, it is interesting to note that a modern insight into the neural foundations of aesthetics comes from V.S. Ramachandran. One wonders if his Hindu origins might have provided a prior (“sub-conscious” or overt) for his formulating his theory.

NS 6.32:
tatra rasAneva tAvad AdAv abhivyAkhyAsyAmaH |
na hi rasAdR^ite kashchid arthaH pravartate |
tatra vibhAvAnubhAva vyabhichAri saMyogAd rasa niShpattiH |
ko dR^iShTAntaH |
atrAha yathA hi nAnA vya~njanauShadhi dravya saMyogAd rasa niShpattiH tathA nAnA bhAvopagamAd rasa niShpattiH |
yathA hi guDAdibhir dravyair vya~njanair auShadhibhish cha ShADavAdayo rasA nirvartyante tathA nAnA bhAvopagatA api sthAyino bhAvA rasatvam ApnuvantIti |
atrAha rasa iti kaH padArthaH |
uchyate
AsvAdyatvAt |
kathamAsvAdyate rasaH |
yathA hi nAnA vya~njana saMskR^itam annaM bhu~njAna rasAn AsvAdayanti sumanasaH puruSha harShAdIMsh-chAdhigachChanti tathA nAnA bhAvAbhinaya vya~njitAn vAg a~NgasattopetAn sthAyibhAvAnA svAdayanti sumanasaH prekShakAH
harShAdIMsh chAdhigachChanti |
tasmAn nATya rasA ity abhivyAkhyAtAH |

atrAnuvaMshyau shlokau bhavataH
yathA bahu dravya-yutair-vya~njanair-bahubhir-yutam |
AsvAdayanti bhu~njAnA bhaktaM bhaktavido janAH ||

Some of the other kAlI-kula systems, which are also mentioned along side the kapAla-DAmarIya-s, are the mauleya-s, the tripuraghna-s, the digaMbara-s and the bhANDikera-s. Further allusions to these traditions are available in the section starting at 10.1251. They are described as being kaula traditions. Here it is again clarified that the kApAlika-s root text was taught by kapAlaDAmara. The root text of the naked digaMbara-s, who wander in cemeteries, is said to be promulgated by bhairava. The mauleya-s are described as followers of the yAmala texts, while the shAbaratantra is said to be root text of the bhANDikera-s. The digaMbara-s and kApAlika-s are described as being sarva-bhakSha-s who eat human meat and beef and participants in incestuous sexual unions. They are clearly described as veda-bAhya-s. So these kApAlika-s are evidently what one might term the “later” kApAlika-s who lie inside the kaula system rather than the early pAshupata kApAlika-s. Nevertheless, it is clearly stated that all the above traditions undergo pAshupata dIkSha and are called shaiva, suggesting the continuity between the two.

One formulation of the kula-chakra, in the midst of which guhyakAlI is worshiped in the system of kapAla-DAmarIya-s (10.1000-1015), is the 12-petalled maNDala (of course the digaMbara-s and tripuraghna-s have their own cognates of the same). The system is interesting in that it incorporates a list of astra-s: 1) brahmAstra; 2) AgneyAstra; 3) vAyavAstra; 4) aiShikAstra; 5) parvatAstra; 6) nAgAstra; 7) prasvApanAstra; 8) sauparNAstra; 9) mAta~NgAstra; 10) dAnavAstra; 11) paiShAchAstra; 12) brahmashiras
The bhairava-s are listed as: 1) ulkAmukha; 2) pi~NgajaTa; 3) dAvAnala; 4) pretAsana; 5) shuShkodara; 6) jvAlAkula; 7) chaNDahAsa; 8) bhUtonmAda; 9) kulachakra; 10) meghanAda; 11) vishvarUpa; 12) antagochara.
These twelve bhairava-s are associated with the 12 astra-s. Their mantra-s are formed by:
kUrcha-rAvav-athAstraM cha namaH svAhA tathaiva cha |

kUrcha: hUM; rAva: phreM; astra: phaT
e.g. ulkAmukhAya huM phreM phaT namaH svAhA ||
In deployment they might be combined with the visheSha saptAkSharI vidyA of guhyakAlI:
tAratrape yoginI cha ramAkAmau cha DakinI |
pralayash chApi phetkArI bijAni stairya-bhan~nji hi ||
Thus the visheSha saptAkSharI of the kapAlaDamarIya-s is:
OM ChrIM shrIM klIM khphreM hsphreM hskhphreM ||
The sAmAnya saptAkSharI is cryptically encoded.

In addition to the several details on the kApAlika practice of the kapAla-DAmara tradition, the text specifies a special ritual of the kApAlika-s known as the ashokArohaNa. It appears to have been performed on the chaitra shukla saptami and was marked by the worship of mahiShAsuramardinI by with ashoka flowers, followed by a pUjA with modaka-s, rice, ku~Nkuma, incense, camphor and several types of flowers. Given the details of the kApAlika practice in the MKS, it is clear that the text is recording a genuine tradition of these kaula kApAlika-s within the kAlI kula. Thus, we may infer that the kApAlika system of the early pAshupata-s eventually merged into this tradition within kaula tAntrika practice in north-eastern India (Bihar, Eastern UP and Bengal; in south India the ancestral kApAlika-s survived in part).

This inference of the absorption of the kApAlika-s through a merger with the kAlI kula also helps understand the situation with the other mata-s and tantra-s mentioned in the above-stated matanIrupaNa section of MKS. The only mata-s described as shaiva are the kApAlika-s, digaMbara-s, mauleya-s and bhANDikera-s and all of them are described as being kaula-s. Beyond these the text mentions yAj~nika-s as the performers of vaidika rituals, the jaina-s, bauddha-s, chArvAka-s, nirIshvara sAMkhyavAdin-s, vedAntin-s, saura-s, vaiShNava-s, gANesha-s, shrauta-s and smArta-s. Thus, it is clear that the MKS is seeing the shaiva practice as being solely kaula (i.e. It does not even mention the saiddhAntika-s). But how do these mata-s being described as kaula in MKS compare with the actual textual situation (especially in terms of the texts attributed to them)? Below is a chart of the traditions and their saMhitA-s as per the MKS:

Now we may compare this with the system of development of the shaiva shAstra-s:

Within the shaiva shAstra-s both tradition and an objective analysis point to a consistent picture. There are two major traditional classifications: One follows the srotas system (see above picture). The second, the pITha system, is used in addition to the srotas system by the kaula-s. The latter is largely consistent with the layers of development within the bhairava srotas. What we observe is that the classical bhairava tantra-s are the root layer comprising the mantra-pITha and correspond to what are termed the tantra-s of the digaMbara-s according to the MKS. The next layer in the pITha system is the vidyApITha which includes three streams in it. Of these the right and the middle streams are dominated by the yAmala tantra-s. The jayadratha yAmala which has absorbed tantra-s of the vAma-srotas belongs to the middle stream of the vidyApITha along with yoginI-jAla-shaMbara, vishvAdya, siddhayogeshvarI-mata and shrI-chakra. The left stream includes tantra of the vAma srotas like saMmohana, the DAmara tantra and others like mahAraudra. Thus, it appears that the the yAmala-s in the right and middle stream of the vidyApITha map to the tantra-s that are termed as belonging to the mauleya-s in the MKS. A part of the left stream is the DAmara which belong to the kApAlika-s according to the MKS. The srotas classification reports that the shAbara tantra was a section of the garuDa srotas. We suspect that this mapping preserves within it a remnant of the relationship between the old ati-mArga systems and the mantra-mArga elements that evolved from it. Thus, not only the kApAlika-s but also the rest like the mauleya-s, digaMbara-s and bhANDikera-s are likely to represent streams originally within the ati-marga that eventually adopted the mantra-mArga. The above mapping might provide hints regarding how this might have happened. From the early layer of the siddhAnta tantra-s it is clear that the Urdhvasrotas had a close affinity with the various atimArga pAshupata-s who primarily emphasized purity. However, they did not entirely exclude the elements of niHsha~NkAchAra such as the asidhara-vrata and latA-sAdhAna. These latter elements were emphasized to differing degrees in the kApAlika and related stream of the atimArga. So it is quite possible that these were the precursors of the cognate streams of the mantra-mArga that included such practices. It also suggests that there might have been a core mantra-mArga of this type, i.e. that of the vAma tantra-s and bhairava tantra-s, while various miscellaneous tAntrika practices developed by the transitioning ati-mArga schools were incorporated into these core mantra-mArga systems. In this light we suspect that the DAmara tantra-s containing early mantra material that may have been developed by the kApAlika-s might have been incorporated into the vAma srotas or the left stream of the vidyApITha. This is supported by an archaic core seen in the uDDAmareshvara tantra, which we will consider separately on a different occasion. Similarly, the bhairava tantra-s and the yAmala tantra-s themselves might have been evolutes of the mantra systems of the other originally ati-mArga streams, the digaMbara-s and mauleya-s. The bhANDikera-s in contrast might have preserved a parallel redaction of the mantra material similar to that used by the kApAlika-s in their shAbara tantra-s. It is possible that these were also associated with the shabara tribes whose rituals were used in the shAkta context for durgA (especially vanadurgA and vindhyavAsini) on the vijayadashamI day. They appear to have been finally incorporated into the garuDa srotas, probably on account of their general topical similarity to other material incorporated into this srotas, such as the herbal antidotes, use of avian feathers and certain sylvan rituals. Today, the rare surviving bhANDikera-s in Southwestern India appear to have entirely lost their affinities to niHsha~NkAchara and are followers of the shaMkara maTha.

In this regard the purANa-s, the much reviled source of early Indian history, are not very different. While the andhra-s or shAtavAhana-s find a prominent place in their terminal account of the dynasties of the kaliyuga, there is no mention shUdraka as being the cause of their end [Footnote 1]. Indeed the core of the paurANika narrative appears to have ended with the shAtavAhana-s – e.g. the matsya purANa records them as the last dynasty. Some old paurANika vaMsha-s appear to have been extended to include some brief accounts of successor states of the andhra-s, such as the nAga-s, the shrIparvata-s, AbhIra-s and early gupta-s; they are hardly the subject of any detailed account. More pertinently, they do not mention shUdraka as being among the glorious successor kings. Interestingly, the core paurANika accounts also do not mention vikrama in connection with the andhra-s. Thus, we may conclude that the literary tradition of the kAvya-s and nATaka-s are not entirely congruent with the purANa-s. So was this legendary king shUdraka all legend after all? This is a question which arrested our attention since our days of childhood.

The legend of the shAtavAhana emperor
To get a hang of this issue we may first look into shAtavAhana with whom literary tradition connects shUdraka. The shAtavAhana of literary tradition might be a composite of more than one andhra emperor, synonymized under the dynastic name. A number of notable andhra kings are recognized by the purANa-s and epigraphic records who may be the prototypes of the shAtavAhana of literature. Indeed, the synonymy of multiple shAtavAhana emperors in literary tradition appears to be echoed by the much later jaina polymath hemachandra sUri in his deshI-nama-mAlA who gives, shAtavAhana [shAlivAhana], sAlana, hAla, kuntala as a list of synonyms. In literary tradition he tends to come as a single figure of outstanding significance, who founded the era in which we live (at least south of the narmadA). For example, we commonly hear the verse:
yudhiShThiro vikrama-shAlivAhanau tato nR^ipaH syAd vijayAbhinandanaH |
tatastu nAgArjuna bhUpatiH kalau kalkI* ShaDete shaka-kArakAH smR^itAH || from ananta’s play
[*karkI in the rhotacizing version]

Thus, tradition explains that the kaliyuga is marked by 6 kings starting with yudhiShThira. He was followed by vikrama and shAlivAhana thereafter. About 16000 years in the future it is said that the ruler vijayAbhinandana would found a new era after he has ousted the mlechCha-s from the sindhu. After that in Bengal nAgArjuna would start a new era and finally the kali yuga would be brought to an end by the coming of kalkI at shambala. Similarly, shAtavahana is mentioned again with vikrama in another verse composed in the paramAra court after the death of bhojadeva:
dhAtar-bhartar-ashesha-yAchaka-jane vairAyase sarvathA
yasmAd vikrama shAlivAhana mahI-bhR^in mu~nja bhojAdayaH |
atyantaM chira-jIvino na vihitAste vishvajIvAtavo
mArkaNDa dhruva lomasha prabR^itayaH sR^iShTAhi dIrghAyushaH ||

Here the poet states that dhAtR^i must really not like poets who live off patronage (yAchaka-s) because while he has granted a long life for the ascetics like mArkaNDeya, dhruva and lomasha, he as not granted a long life for the kings vikrama, shAlivAhana, mu~nja and bhoja [who were great patrons of literature].

Literary tradition uniformly records this shAlivAhana as being not just a great patron but also a notable prAkR^ita poet who composed the sattAsai or the subhAShita-kosha as bANAbhaTTa calls it.

Who was shUdraka: some ideas prevalent among historians
This illustrious shAtavAhana was the one whom shUdraka is supposed to have superseded. So, what do we known about him within the literary tradition? Firstly, he is said to have been the subject of a historical narrative, the shudraka-kathA by the poets rAmila and somila which has unfortunately been lost. In the absence of this key narrative, the common practice among historians, who have tried to find history in shUdraka, is to interpret the available data thus: 1) Since he is said to have been the nemesis of the shAtavAhana-s he should be found among the successor states of the said dynasty. 2) Since his locus of activity is described as avanti and mAlava, he should be located among the northern successor states of the Andhra-s rather than those taking their place in the core zone. 3) In his play mR^ichChakaTika he has a character named Aryaka, who is described as a gopAla-dAraka (son of a cowherd) who seizes the throne of avanti by overthrowing the king pAlaka. This is taken to refer to the AbhIra cowherds overthrowing the shAtavAhana-s. In this regard the authority of certain purANa-s, which state that 10 AbhIra rulers spanning 67 years ruled after the shAtavAhana-s, is used to support the proposal. 4) His name “little shUdra” literally means he was a shUdra; hence, he was an AbhIra (since these cowherds are traditionally regarded as a shUdra group). So, it was concluded that shUdraka was one of the AbhIra rulers and is usually identified with either shivadatta or his son Ishvaradatta. As circumstantial support for this proposition it has been stated that like the AbhIra kings who were votaries of rudra, shUdraka also always specifically invokes rudra at the beginning of his literary works [note the use of the phrase “sharva prasAdAt” in his regard]. Again the date of the skanda purANa in kaliyuga saMvatsara-s [Footnote 1] is taken to support the AbhIra identification of shUdraka.

However, other than the potentially important historical marker in shUdraka’s play of the conquest of avanti by a cowherd king, much of the above speculation does not hold up to close historical analysis. The AbhIra-s of the region are recorded primarily in the context of the kShatrapa-s of western India. We first encounter them as backers of the kShatrapa rudrasiMha in his quest for the throne – they, under their general rudrabhUti, aid him in displacing the kShatrapa jIvadAman from the throne (Gunda inscription of ~181 CE). Some time thereafter (but before 191 CE), the abhIra chief Ishvaradatta, the son of shivadatta, displaced the rudrasiMha to become lord of avanti for some time. This probably corresponded to the coup of the gopAla-dAraka Aryaka mentioned in the mR^ichChakaTika. However, it should be noted that at this time the shAtavAhana-s were far from overthrown – in fact a reasonably powerful andhra ruler shrI-yaj~na-shAtakarNi held his sway throughout this period and was able to seize the northern Konkan from the kShatrapa-s. Thus, at least the historical marker in the mR^ichChaTika is best identified with the brief AbhIra conquest of avanti from the kShatrapa-s. It can in no way be taken as the conquest of avanti by the AbhIra-s from the shAtavAhana-s to end their reign. Hence, the whole identification of shUdraka with one or the other AbhIra king appears rather facile.

Literary tradition on shUdraka
Now, we may turn to look more closely at the literary tradition itself to better understand the material on shUdraka. We currently possess three major works are attributed to shUdraka – the mR^ichChakaTika, the monologue (bhANa) known as padma-prAbhR^itaka and the vINA-vAsavadattA. Of these the former two are best preserved, and the first of them offers the most in terms of information relevant to our quest. Firstly, it should be noted that in addition to the gopAla character Aryaka, who finally becomes king by staging a coup, there is another reference in the mR^ichChakaTika that might connect him to the kShatrapa rudrasiMha. In the 8th act of the play, the rogue shakAra (saMsthAnaka) is about to murder the heroine, the public woman vasantasenA, in the park, when she states that if only her lover the brAhmaNa chArudatta saw her he would rescue her. To this saMsthAnaka mockingly replies in the vulgar prAkR^ita (note shakAra is depicted with a speech defect; perhaps he was of Iranian descent with a bad accent making s->sh):
kiM she shakke vAlIputte mahinde laMbhAputte kAlaNeMI shubandhU |
ludde lA.A doNaputte jaDA.u chANakke vA dundhumAle tisha~NkU || (in 8.34)
He asks if her lover is indra, or the son of vAlin, the son of the apsara raMbhA or the asura kAlanemI or subandhu or the king rudra or ashvatthAman or jaTayu or chANakya or dundhumara or trisha~Nku. Here the mention of the king rudra rAjan (ludde lA.A) is rather telling in the context of the cowboy coup mentioned elsewhere in the play. It is a reasonably strong piece of evidence that indeed the coup of Aryaka is modeled on the AbhIra coup on the kShatrapa rudrasiMha. Other circumstantial evidence is the praise of rudra and skanda by Aryaka’s host upon his successful takeover of the throne – this is consonant with the epigraphic evidence supporting the mAheshvara affinities of the AbhIra rulers:
jayati vR^iShabha ketur dakSha-yaj~nasya hantA
tadanu jayati bhetta ShaNmukhaH krau~ncha-shatruH | (in 10.45)
In terms of location while prathiShThAna is not the center of the action there is a mention of durgA as sahyavAsinI (the goddess of the sahyAdri-s) rather than the usual vindhyavAsinI (in 10.36). This supports the origin locus of the play in dakShiNApatha. Thus, one might conclude that the play as we have it was probably composed after the AbhIra conquest of the kShatrapa-s and in the Deccan region.

However, there are some other features in the play that make the picture more complex. First, the play’s prefatory statement has a posthumous eulogy of shUdraka. So, clearly the play appears to have been redacted after his death. What we do not know is the degree to which it was redacted. This makes a direct inference of the *author’s* age based on historical events in the play somewhat uncertain. This is further emphasized by two issues: 1) The plot of the play appears to exist independently in another play termed the dAridra-chArudatta which is attributed by some to bhAsa. This implies that redaction of the existing story line that characterizes this play by different authors is something that has happened in the early Indian theater. This allows us to raise the question as to how far the version we have represents directly represents shUdraka’s contribution. 2) The prAkR^ita verse quoted above mentions subandhu. Now, there is only one famous subandhu in Indic literature – the author of the vAsavadattA romance. That subandhu is generally taken to be a much later author because he refers to the nyAya intellectual udyotakAra who post-dates the nAstika intellectual din-nAga. So, if the vAsavadattA as we have it is subandhu’s original work then we are faced with a further chronological tangle with respect to shUdraka.However, this problem vanishes if we accept the position of Hindu literary tradition on subandhu [Footnote 2].

The preface of the mR^ichChaTika describes shUdraka thus:
dviradendra gatish chakora-netraH paripUrNendu-mukhaH suvigrahash cha |
dvijamukhyatamaH kavir babhUva prathitaH shUdraka ityagAdha satvaH ||
He had the gait of an elephant the eyes of a partridge, his face beamed like the moon and he had a well-built body. He was a chief among the dvija-s and a kavi who was known as shUdraka. His good was unfathomed.
api cha |
R^igvedaM sAmavedaM gaNitaM atha kalAM vaishikIM hastishikShaM
j~nAtvA sharva-prasAdAd vyapagata-timire chakShuShI chopalabhya |
rAjAnaM vIkShya putraM paraMa-samudeyana-ashvamedhena cheShTvA
labdhvA chAyuH shatAbdaM dasha dina sahitaM shUdrako .agniM praviShTaH ||
he knew the R^ig, the sAman, mathematics, the sexual arts and elephant training and by the grace of sharva his eyes were never covered with darkness. He placed his son to rule after him and sought to perform the most difficult ashvamedha ritual. After having obtained a life of 100 years and 10 days he was cremated.
api cha |
samara-vyasanI pramAda shUnyaH kakudaM veda-vidAM tapodhanash cha |
paravAraNa bAhu yuddha lubdhaH kShitipAlaH kila shUdrako babhuva ||
He was swift in battle and free from drunkenness. He was the pinnacle of the veda-knowers and the possessors of tapasya. He was keen to engage with his arm the enemy defenses, such was the king shUdraka.

While this portraiture might be seen as aiming to convey the all-round brilliance of shUdraka in the three puruShArtha-s, it has one peculiar element: Although shUdraka is a brAhmaNa, his royal status, and his physical and military prowess are emphasized in addition to his traditionally brahminical pursuits of scholarship [Footnote 3]. These points are consistently emphasized by all the other authors in Indian literary tradition who refer to shUdraka. These accounts include that of daNDin, who lists shUdraka as one of the old authors whom he respects – he describes him an a universal conqueror twice over – once with his weapons and again with his literary compositions. The Kashmirian historian kalhaNa mentions him in his rAja-taraMgiNi as being one who was firm in wielding weapons and also a learned man. Several saMskR^ita literary critics invariably mention him as a famous literary figure and/or a warrior – these include bANa in his kAdaMbarI, kulashekhara in his tapatisaMvaraNa, bhUShaNa in his chandrApIDa katha. While his early biographies by rAmila and somila, and also one by pa~nchashikha, have been lost we have account two notable accounts of his life. The escapades of shUdraka with his two women vinayavatI and harimatI and his subsequent marriages with them are narrated by daNDin. On the other side his brave deeds are narrated in a somewhat corrupt and fantastic fashion by ananta, which includes an interesting textual reference of shUdraka’s magical voyage to the American continent (krau~ncha-dvIpa). Comparable accounts of the deeds of shUdraka are also available from the jaina works, the kalpa-pradIpa by jina-prabha sUri and the chaturviMshati prabandha of rAjashekhara jaina. Further material is offered by bhatta-somadeva in his kathA-sarit-sAgara, rAjashekhara (the Hindu one) in his kAvya mImAmsa and hemachandra sUri. The general narrative regarding shUdraka that can be reconstructed from these accounts goes thus:

A brAhmaNa named harisharman sought the audience of the great andhra emperor shAtavAhana but was beaten up and driven out by his guards. The brAhmaNa seeking to punish the king performed a rite to viShNu to obtain a son who would kill shAtavAhana [Footnote 4]. This son was shUdraka, who was orphaned shortly after his birth. His maternal uncle became his guardian and shUdraka rapidly acquired considerable proficiency in various intellectual spheres even as a child. But unlike most other brAhmaNa children, he displayed extraordinary physical strength and proficiency with the bow, quarterstaff and sword. Once shAtavAhana and his vIra-s had a show of strength in pratiShThaNa. They were to lift a large and heavy rock with their hands. Most vIra-s could only lift it by a thumb or two thumbs breadth, but shAtavAhana lifted it up to his knees. It was then that the young shUdraka strode in there and easily lifted the stone and threw it in the air. It broke into three pieces and one fell in the nAgahrada and another at the cross of the highways between uttarApatha and dakShiNApatha. Amazed at this feat shAtavAhana made shUdraka the chief of this guards. His vIra-s afraid of his power asked that he only be given a quarterstaff and no other weapon. However, with just this weapon he was able to stave of the vIra-s when they once tried to break into the king’s fort in pratiShThana. Once the shAtAvAhana kingdom was invaded by the chiefs dUrgarAja and chUrNarAja but they were defeated and subjugated by shUdraka who lead the the army. The king then made shUdraka his prime minister.

At this point things get fantastic and an asura called mAya took the form of a brAhmaNa and entered the palace of shAtavAhana to seize his wife ana~Ngavati. But shUdraka with his magical abilities was able to see the asura and beheaded him. But he was accused of brahmahatya and asked to go into exile. He then showed that head of the asura could still speak and tried to absolve himself of the accusation. The head was then taken to the inner chambers to entertain shAtavAhana’s women. But the head of the asura alone was able to regain its power and seize ana~Ngavati. Carrying her, the asura flew across the eastern ocean over the dvIpa-s of suvarNa and finally landed in krau~nchadvIpa where he imprisoned her with the help of his brother the asura mAtra. The king’s court accused shUdraka of having abducted the queen. He vowed to get her back in two months. Accordingly he performed a great tAntrika ritual to kAlikA who showed him via the dUradR^iShTi prayoga that the queen was imprisoned in krau~nchadvIpa. She asked him to perform another rite of the jAla-chakra of 64 yogini-s to help he reach the most distant continent. The yoginI-s pleased by the ritual gave him an invisibility turban, flying slippers, a magical sword and control over a vetAla, who would be his assistant. With these accoutrements shUdraka flew over the ocean and the islands and reached krau~nchadvIpa. There his vetAla was able to lead him to a dense forest in the midst of which in a stone fort was imprisoned the queen. He scaled the fort and under the cloak of invisibility conferred by his turban he reached the asura-s and killed them after a tough fight with his sword. Then, he flew back with the queen and returned her to the king. Then she gave birth to a son svAti and a daughter shakti. After this the shAtavAhana who had ruled justly till then lost his mind and started seizing and sexually enjoying women from each of the 4 varNa-s and dreadful intestinal disease was spreading through the land. Alarmed at this, the brAhmaNa-s turned to shUdraka, who had just then returned from his escapade in which he had gained two wives, one of whom was a mAlavan princess.

shUdraka overthrew shAtavAhana, made his son svAti the king, and cured the land of the disease [Some versions say that the brAhmaNa-s invoked a terrible yoginI of the name karNakumArI in a lump of flour and she seized shAtavAhana and drowned him in the nAgahrada]. Then shUdraka despite his loyalty to the shAtavAhana house was attacked by svAti. In a great showdown in northern Maharashtra shUdraka bolstered by troops from beMba, the avanti prince, routed the army of svAti, took him captive and performed the ashvamedha ritual. He then reinstated svAti as the king with his own son to watch over him. Some accounts state that finally shUdraka himself was killed and eaten by a brahma-rAkshasa. Yet others state that finally at the age of 100 years and 10 days he surrendered himself to death. The jaina versions state that he would attain jina-hood in his next birth as he has been enlightened by a jaina AchArya curiously named kAlika.

shUdraka as a historical figure
The vividness of the shUdraka character suggests to me that beyond doubt that he was a significant historical figure, who somehow slipped through the cracks. It is from accounts such as the above we are now left to piece together his history. At the most basic level we can confidently reconstruct shUdraka as having been a brAhmaNa minister of a shAtavAhana king. While he overthrew the rAjan, it appears that in all likelihood he did not found a dynasty of his own as many accounts mention him as eventually restoring the kingdom to the son of shAtavahana. This would imply that we should not expect to find in the paurANic king list and also that he is unlikely to be found among the successor states of the shAtavahana-s. Regarding his date two main scenarios present themselves. In the first option, we make the assumption that, other than the preface, much of the mR^ichChakaTika was indeed shUdraka’s own work. If this were the case, then we have the temporal marker of Ishvaradatta overthrowing the kShatrapa rudrasiMha and also the mention of the nANAka coin with the image of the Sumerian goddess nAnA, who was syncretized with the Iranian aredvI sUrA anAhitA. This would place shUdraka after 190 CE. Thus, he could have overlapped with yaj~na-shAtakarNi or his immediate successor. It is conceivable that under yaj~na-shAtakarNi’s immediate successor the shAtavahana-s declined allowing the takeover of the kingdom by shUdraka followed by the establishment of puppet rulers.

However, this scenario has a potential problem leading to an alternative – the successor of the shAtavAhana king is given as being svAti. There are several svAti-s in the dynasty, but none of them are recorded after yaj~na shAtakarNi’s reign. The first of them might have come to the throne around 57 BCE and the last of them around 86 CE. The last of the svAti-s was preceded (by a few generations in the purANa-s) by hAla who is identified with shAlivAhana who is typically the locus of the shUdraka narratives. He is generally believed to be the shAtavAhana ruler who tried a naval attack on shrI lankA, the one in whose court the paishAchI bR^ihatkatha was presented, and the author of the sattAsai. Hence, he could fit into the role of the legendary king shAlivAhana whose reign was truncated by shUdraka. A related possibility is suggested by bANabhaTTa’s record in the harShacharita that shUdraka was instrumental in the conquest of the chakora province from chandraketu. We have a short-lived king in the paurANic king lists (e.g. matsya purANa), in the generations immediately after hAla, named chakora-svAti, who could well have been named so because he was in possession of the chakora province. His predecessor, a certain sundara-shAtakarNi whose reign was also rather short. It is possible that the short reign of sundara shAtakarNi marks the the period of the rise of shUdraka, his eventual conquest of the chakora province and finally his return of the throne to the andhra-s under svati along with the chakora province. These consideration would place shUdraka earlier in time, approximately between 50-86 CE. But these proposals would need us to sacrifice the mR^ichChakaTika as we have it as being shUdraka’s un-redacted work.

My own speculation is that the shAlivAhana legend developed first around hAla but started accreting material from other shAtavAhana rulers. Thus, hAla and a svAti down in his lineage were telescoped as father son pair. In the development of the shAlivAhana legend, hAla provided the inspiration for a scholarly king encouraging literary activity. His valiant successor gautamiputra shAtakarNi supplied the image of a valiant shAtavAhana who took the andhra-s to great heights. The image of the criminally sexual king appears to have been transferred from an earlier shAtavahAna ruler kuntala-svAti who is mentioned in the kAmasUtra as killing his wife with scissors during his violent sexual activities. Finally, it conceivable that the historical shUdraka emerged to crush but not displace the andhra-s after the reign of yaj~na shAtakarNi. As a result he was then superimposed onto the shAlivAhana legend that was amalgamated from various earlier shAtavAhana monarchs. However, I find it equally likely that he was earlier and associated with the apparent dip in the shAtavAhana regimes following hAla. Given the evidence for multiple recensions of the chArudatta play, I will not be surprised if the extant mR^ichChakaTika is a redaction of shUdraka’ version that happened about a century after him.

Appendix: shUdraka and the thiefs
The mR^ichaChakaTika is invaluable in being one of the few surviving sources of the mysterious shAstra that is said to have been revealed by kumAra for the benefit of chora-s and taskara-s. In chapter 3 of the play the brAhmaNa thief sharvilaka is shown citing several usages from this shAstra. He sights some dirt thrown up by a gnawing rodent and calls it a portent of success for the sons of skanda, i.e. thieves. He then goes on to cite various precepts of that had been taught by skanda regarding how a wall must be breached during a burglary. Importantly, during the process he applies a magical invisibility ointment and utters a mantra to kumAra. This mantra is a version of the same found in the extremely rare ShaNmukha-kalpa, one of the earliest surviving kaumAra tantras:
namo varadAya kumAra-kArttikeyAya | namaH kanaka-shaktaye brahmaNyadevA devavratAya | namo bhAskara-nandine | namo yogAchAryAya yasyAhaM prathamaH shiShyaH | tena cha partituShTena yoga-rochanA me dattA |
Then applying the ointment he utters:
anayA hi samAlabdhaM na mAM drakShyanti rakShiNaH |
shastraM cha patitaM gAtre rujaM notpAdayiShyati ||
Then again before entering through the breach he utters “namaH kArttikeyAya |”.
The parallels with the ShaNmukha-kalpa found in this play, along with the several mantra-archaisms of former text itself, suggest that this kaumAra tantra was likely in place before around 200 CE. This is further indirect evidence for our proposal that key elements of the shaiva mantra mArga had their origins in the archaic kaumAra tantra-s whose knowledge considerably declined thereafter.

In this context we might note some curious incidents regarding shUdraka’s life narrated by daNDin. While shUdraka was trying to enter the palace of the princess vinayavatI, he was caught by the men of the king of mAlava. While he escaped and succeeded in eloping with her initially, the mAlava rAjan captured his daughter and took her back, leaving shUdraka to wander in the forests of the Satpura mountains. Here he was captured by dacoits and taken to their lair. There he greatly enamored the dacoit chief’s daughter AryadAsI, who selflessly released him from their clutches. Then he tried to enter mAlava again when he was captured by the men of the rAjan as a dacoit and was to be sentenced to death for various crimes. At this point vinayavatI saves him and the two escape and get married. The intimate knowledge of the chaurya-shAstra and the character of the peculiar saMskR^ita speaking brahminical thief suggests that indeed there might be some historicity to the narrative of daNDin. It is likely that these elements come from shUdraka’s own version of the play and were related to his time spent with the dacoits.

……………….
Footnote 1: There is a suggestion that shUdraka has been mentioned in the vulgate skanda purANa 1.2.40.249. Based on the dynastic list his age is specified as kali 3290 ~ 188 CE. This reference is unfortunately somewhat uncertain because the name shUdraka is not reliable preserved across the manuscripts or recensions. In any case the date is tantalizing, given his identification by former historians with an AbhIra king. However, it should be stressed that the SkP text is very clear in calling him an andhra/andhra-bhR^itya.

Footnote 2: Hindu literary tradition, like the accounts of daNDin and abhinavagupta, present subandhu as living in the court of bindusAra the son of chandragupta maurya. subandhu is said to have been captured by bindusAra in course of his campaigns, but captivated by his work, vAsavadattA, bindusAra released him and made him his minister. This is supported by the legend recorded in certain colophons of the vAsavadattA that subandhu was the nephew of vararuchi through his sister. Tradition tends to hold vararuchi as being in nanda/chandragupta maurya’s court. Finally, the ma~njushriya mUlakalpa states that while ‘vi’ was the brAhmaNa adviser of chandragupta ‘su’ was the adviser of bindusAra – viShNugupta chANakya and subandhu. This fits well with the mention of chANakya and subandhu together in the mR^ichChakaTika. This raises the possibility that works of previous authors like subandhu might have indeed been redacted or reworked giving artificially latter dates. A similar process could have happened for the mR^ichChakaTika too.

Footnote 3: pR^ithividhara (an AchArya of the shaMkara maTha), the famous commentator on the mR^ichChakaTika, opines that shUdraka was a kShatriya. However, this characterization is a faulty interpretation of the preface that goes counter to all the other testimonies regarding shUdraka (see above). The name shUdraka appears to have been taken as an ironic screen name, keeping well with his sense of humor displayed in the mR^ichChakaTika (note saMsthAnaka’s “murder” of the bhArata and the rAmAyaNa). Indeed daNDin reveals his real name to be indrANigupta. This also rules out the speculation that shUdraka was an AbhIra shUdra.

Footnote 4: This incident might be compared to a similar incident in the origin story of the kadaMba dynasty, wherein the brAhmaNa mayUrasharman of kA~nchipuraM raised an army to defeat the pallava-s after he had been roughly manhandled by pallavan cavalrymen.

We have the following testimony regarding the secularism of the Mongol from a contemporaneous Isaistic theologian of the Syriac church, Bar-Hebraeus: “With the Mongols there is neither slave nor freeman, neither believer nor heathen, neither Christian nor Jew; but they regard all men as belonging to one and the same stock.” The religious tolerance of the Mongol empire was welcomed by the followers of the traditions of dharma, the heathen Turko-Mongol systems and Judaists. Isaists approached it with mixed feelings, whereas the Mohammedans saw it with utmost loathing. A document from the German monastery of Marbach, from shortly after the conquests of Chingiz Kha’Khan, states that the Jews were delighted with the coming of the Mongols and felt that their time of liberation had come. They even called Chingiz Kha’Khan as the son of Dawid. Similarly, the Kashmirian practitioner of mantrayAna, kamalashrI and the brAhmaNa jaya paNDita felt that the Mongols would finally restore the dharma that had been destroyed by the dreaded turuShka-s. On the other hand the European Isaistic preachers upon hearing of the smashing of the German, Czech and Polish knights by the Mongol troops in the battle of Liegnitz felt that the coming of the Mongols was the arrival of the Anti-Christ. However, the crusader states in the Middle East saw the defeat of the Mohammedan powers by the Mongols as a fulfillment of the myth of Prester John and a welcome relief for Isaism. Indeed, the records present several advantages to the followers of dharma, other heathens, the Judaists and Isaists. Suddenly, with the coming of the Mongol rule in place of the Kalif of Baghdad, who had been killed by Huelegue Khan, the Dhimmi Isasists and Judaists found that they need not pay any Jizya or wear an yellow badge or restrictions on trade and movement that were common under the Mohammedans. Now the followers of dharma, relieved of their Kaffir status in the Middle East were also free to be employed there and transmit their religion freely.

It was under these circumstances that Sa’d ad-Dawla bin Moses a Jewish physician from Baghdad got appointed as physician to Arghun Khan, grandson of Huelegue. Impressed by his intelligence Arghun Khan appointed him as his Vazir. In turn Sa’d had Arghun appoint several Jews to the administration. Due to the Mohammedan persecution of various groups favored by Arghun he came up with a plan to conquer Mecca and restore heathen worship there with construction of temples of buddhakapAla and heruka, but due to other preoccupations he failed to do so. Indeed, during the Ilkhanid regime multiple temples to buddhakapAla, kAlachakra and hevajra had been built in Baghdad, Tabriz and in some places in the province of Khurasan. We may also interpret Rashid ad-din’s account of the atash-kada and kaffirkot to suggest that there was at at least one Astika temple in Baghdad. The Mohammedans, smarting under their loss of power, sent assassins to kill Sa’d, but they were promptly arrested by the Mongols. When Arghun fell terminally ill the Mohammedans got their chance to attach Sa’d ad-Dawla and kill him along with several of his coethnics. However, when the Arabs attacked the Jewish quarter of Baghdad a great battle broke out till the Mongols arrived and smashed the Arabs. In any case even after Sa’d assasination, the actions of Sa’d left several Judaists in the Mongol administration and from the lower ranks of these arose Rashid ad-Din, the son of a medicine seller. Rashid was already a physician for the Mongol court during Arghun’s reign and soon rose the ranks as a civil official.

The death of Arghun was followed by a period of great unrest triggered by the Mohammedans. Ibn al Fuwati writing from a madrasa in Irak stated that the ulema in Baghdad had prepared a statement, which stated that a ruler who raised the Kaffirs and Jews would be laid low by Allah. This was used to whip up Mohammedan frenzy leading to assassination squads directed against the non-Mohammedan officials. Gaikhatu succeeded Arghun was a profligate rule given to alcohol and sex. In his reign paper money similar to that used in the core of the Mongol empire was introduced in Mesopotamia. Around this time a powerful Mongol Bek of the Oirat clan converted to Mohammedanism under the name Nauruz and initiated a scam to produce fake paper money and bring the finances of the empire to ruin [Footnote 1]. This was followed by the assassination of successive Mongol rulers in intercine conflict with the Moslem faction growing in size and power under Nauruz. Order was restored finally under the next ruler Ghazan who made Rashid his Vazir. Rashid’s fiscal policies, some time based on loans from his own fortunes, considerably helped to shore up the empire. He also introduced tax reforms that considerably helped stabilize the lives of people and reduced the propensity for riots. However, the Mohammedans were far from content and under Nauruz placed considerable pressure on Ghazan to convert to Islam. Ghazan finally gave in and was declared Amir ul-Momin and was called upon like a true Ghazi to demolish non-Mohammedan religious places. Rashid records the imposition of Shari’a and the forcible destruction of the temples of dharma in Baghdad, Tabriz and the like. Bar-hebraeus records Mohammedan mobs rioting in all the major cities demolishing temples, churches and synagogues and trashing non-Mohammedans on the streets. Rashid himself though a favorite of the Khan was pressurized to convert to Islam. He overtly claimed conversion but remained true to Judaism in private. Ghazan himself it appears was rather lax on his Islamic observances as many Mongol Beks were not very happy – for example, Qutlugh Shah a Mongol commander felt that the Mongols were making a great mistake by replacing the robust Yasa of Chingiz Kha’Khan with the hundred confusing ways of the Shari’a. The Mongol princes Oljeitu and Timur also resented the attempts at breaking the mantrayAna shrines they had built and the harassment of mantra practitioners.

Nevertheless, the long reign of Rashid as Vazir through the days of Ghazan and Oljeitu brought much stability to the land and also saw a period of intellectual efflorescence – he arranged for the safe passage and residence of several scholars from various nations and religions to reside in the Mongol court at Baghdad. In fact Rashid kept comparing himself to Aristole while Ghazan was his Alexander. Throughout this period, the Islamist faction kept the pressure on Rashid pointing to the fact that he had not really given up his original religion. They kept pointing to his letters in Hebrew to his coethnics and the like. But his closeness to the Khans prevented him and his coethnics from facing any harassment. Finally, matters came to head when Oljeitu died and the Islamist faction was firmly in control. The Shari’a court accused Rashid of having poisoned Oljeitu and forced him to confess his Judaistic affiliations. He then made to watch to beheading of his son and then he was beheaded. His severed head was then stuck on a pole and paraded through Tabriz with cries of how Allah had brought down the Jews. During this a violent Mohammedan mob fell upon the Judaist quarter of Tabriz where Rashid’s clan lived and burnt it down along with a significant portion of his intellectual works and his printing press established with technology imported from the Yuan Khanate. The loathing for Rashid seems to have greatly lingered in the Mohammedan world as some subsequent Perso-Arab writers like al Kashani hurl abuse at him. Later in the early 1400 Miran Shah the son of Timur-i-lang even had the headless corpse of Rashid dug up and thrown into the cemetery of the Jews in Tabriz.

From our view point the there are two chief issues pertaining to the above history:
1) The unique intellectual activity of the late Il-Khanid court. Ghazan directed the extraordinary linguistic and intellectual abilities of Rashid to compose a history of the Mongols. Chingiz Kha’Khan had entrusted the composition of the Mongol history to his adopted son Shi’hi Kutuqu, who wrote it down in metrical form in the Uighur script adopted for the Mongolian language. This became famous as the Altan Daftar which was kept under lock and key in the treasuries of the Khans. Only the senior members of the Borjigin clan and some senior Mongol historians had access to the Altan Daftar, hence lending it the name the secret history. One such historian was Bolad Sechen who was the representative of Kublai Kha’Khan in the Il-Khanid court. While this text was still secret Ghazan hoped that the history of his illustrious ancestors would be more widely distributed and it was this task that Rashid took up, to produce a work in Persian. For this he was directly assisted by Ghazan who had held both the Altan Daftar and supplemented by oral tradition. He was also assisted by Bolad whose knowledge of history was supposed to be best among the Mongols. He supplemented these accounts by texts he had collected from the Qipchak Turks, Hindus, Chinese and Uighurs. He also used the history of the Mongols composed by Ata Malik al-Juvayni the son-in-law of the queen of Georgia. This work continued through the life of Ghazan and was only completed during the reign of his brother Oljeitu.

At this point Oljeitu came up with an unique plan, i.e. to compose an encyclopedic history of the world that would supplement that of the Mongols and entrusted it to Rashid for a handsome stipend. Rashid was more than pleased to take it up and declared that no other king had shown bestowed so much to his Vazir as Oljeitu had done. It was to encompass the histories of early Turks, Mongols of the Qara Khitai empire, Hindus, Chinese, Mohammedans, Isaists and Judaists along with geographical accounts of the world. This venture is particular noteworthy for number of points. Firstly, it was perhaps one of the earliest attempts at systematic universal history along with an attempt to document the knowledge systems of the world. As Rashid states: “The author has, as far as was in his power, multiplied and verified his researches from all that was previously known on the subject in this country, whether described in books or drawn in charts. To this he has added all that, during this fortunate epoch, the philosophers and wise men of India, Qara Khitai, China, France, and other countries have written, and has entered it all in this third volume, after having fully ascertained its authority.” Secondly, it was noteworthy that despite the pressure from the Dar-ul-Islam, Rashid managed to assemble a panel of heathen scholars from different parts of the world to reside in Baghdad and help him with the composition. Of note these include the yogin kamalashrI from Kashmir (who had given mantra dIkSha to Oljeitu and also composed a maNDala-vidhi) and the bauddha-s from the chIna desha, Li-ta-chi and Mak-sun. Thirdly, he imported a new printing press from the core of the Mongol empire to make several copies of the history and distribute it in both Arabic and Persian. Though the original was written in Persian, it appears that the surviving Persian version is a re-translation of the Arabic form under the directives of the Mogol tyrant Akbar, who was keen to have an account of his ancestors (Fazal uses the same genealogy).

Some implications of Rashid’s account of India might be considered here. A eulogy of India is given thus: “India, according to the concurrent opinion of all writers, is the most agreeable abode on the earth, and the most pleasant quarter of the world. Its dust is purer than air, and its air purer than purity itself; its delightful plains resemble the garden of Paradise, and the particles of its earth are like rubies and corals.” This sentence is also found in the account of the eulogizer of the Jihad, Abdullah Wassaf, a junior contemporary of Rashid, suggesting that it might have been borrowed from an earlier work. No doubt the turuShka-s felt a deep urge to invade India and appropriate it. Rashid also mentions several Hindu merchants plying their wares in Tabriz and Baghdad. The destruction of the Kilafat, the lifting of Jaziya and the safe passage for Kaffrs and Dhimmi’s due to the Mongol Kha’Khanate appears to have considerably invigorated trade across Eurasia. But the movement of people brought disease with it and it culminated in the great plague pandemic transmitted by Chinese fleas borne along the trade routes opened up by the Mongols. Of Rashid’s Indic sources kamalashrI is the only one who is well-know. We suspect that kamalashrI was mainly responsible only for the bauddha material, which appears to have included an account based on ashvaghoSha’s narrative of the tathAgata’s life as also some bauddha mantra-s. It also appears that kamalashrI composed a history of the nAstika mata in India similar in some ways to what the Tibetan lAmA tAranAtha later composed. Likewise, the chIna-s who informed him were also clearly bauddha-s who were using Indic terminology (even for example chIna and mahAchIna).

It is however clear that Rashid had another source on purely Astika matters . It is conceivable that his understanding of yoga might have been a commentary on pata~Njali that could have been transmitted by the Mohammedan indologist al Biruni, who produced some works on Hindu topics not unlike that produced by the white Indologists [Footnote 2]. Also notable his account of an Indian animal called the sharu (=sharabha), which could have again filtered down from al Biruni: It is supposed to live in the forests of the Konkan. It was bigger than a rhino with two horns and a beak and a crest with four protuberances. It was supposed to kill elephants and no animal can kill it. Other than natural death it is supposed to die only if it runs off a cliff upon hearing a thunderbolt thinking something is attacking it. Thus its bones and horns are said to be found by people on mountain slopes (One wonders if this is actually points to the fossil inspiration for sharabha).

However, Rashid clearly had another brAhmaNa source for his account based on the harivaMsha, the Hindu genealogies and material resembling the nIlamata purANa. Who could have been this source? For this, ironically, we have to turn the evidence provided by the Kubraviya Shaikh named Ala ad-Dawla Samnani: Arghun Khan had invited a brAhmaNa physician from Hindustan to set up a practice in Baghdad and consulted him for specialist issues. It is quite likely that Sa’d and Rashid keep us in dark about this brAhmaNa because he was a competitor to them as a physician, especially given the high respect he held with the Khans. However, the Shaikh had himself had benefited from the physician’s advise to him on number of matters and refers to him with considerable respect. It is clear that though a firm Sunni, the Shaikh has borrowed extensively from Hindu yoga in his writings while trying to pass them under a Mohammedan garb. Both Rashid and the Shaikh are terrified by the possibility of reincarnation and spend considerable effort to negate it. It is likely that this brAhmaNa was responsible for the remainder of the Indic material used by Rashid in his history.

2) Secularism versus Mohammedanism and failure of counter Jihad alliances. There are several important lessons from the history of these times that have a direct bearing on contemporary issues. One of these is how secularism fares when confronted with Mohammedanism. As we mentioned above the Mongol state was a secular one. Its elite had a rather eclectic approach to religion. Even after his apparent conversion to Islam Ghazan retained the several heathen intellectuals and traders from India, China and Mongolia in his Khanate (though perhaps under pressure from his brother Oljeitu). In fact even his conversion to Islam seems a rather superficial one that was primarily emphasized by his Mohammedan subjects. Evidence for this comes from the fact that even after his apparent conversion we note that his coins are inscribed by the Mongolian Tengri-yin Küchündür which means “by the strength of Tengri”, the original heathen deity of the Mongols. Even after his “conversion” we see him building hospitals for animals following his Indic advisers and practiced high culture such as painting of human figures which was frowned upon by the Ulema. He is also seen sending letters to the crusaders that he wanted Jerusalem to be returned to the Isaists. His ability to speak Latin appears to have considerably charmed the Italians who saw that Khan as one of their own – indeed names of Mongol Khans such as Alaone (for Huelegue), Abago (for Abaqa), Argone (for Arghun) and Cassano (for Ghazan) became rather prevalent among Italian traders. It should be understood that the Il-Khans has conquered Mesopotamia after annihilating the Shi’a power of the Hashishins and the Sunni Kilafat. So the Mohammedans were no longer a political force in Mesopotamia. Yet they were able to destroy the external influences and re-establish the Shari’a. An important lesson from this is that even if Mohammedans are not politically in the driver’s seat, if they are demographically the majority, then they would replace a secular state with high culture with the dreadful Shari’a state.

When the Hindus drove out the English, the chAchA and his followers chose to establish a secular state. The main reason for this was the fear in the Hindu mind of what might happen if the Mohammedans were told that they had a live in a Hindu state. The chAchA and his men thought that by going secular they could appease the Mohammedans and also seem “modern” in the Western (Isaistic) eyes. However, the lesson offered by the conversion of the Il-Khanate into an Islamic state that was bloody within is a grim one. It suggests that history might repeat itself and the secular state of India could be eventually splintered by the Mohammedans in the regions where they gain a demographic upper hand. More generally, a secular state can never be stable with a significant Mohammedan population within its boundaries. That is why even a real secular state in place of the current pseudo-secular cannot save India – only a state that returns to its Hindu cultural moorings can.

Finally it should be noted that the Mongols sent numerous letters to Western European capitals calling on them to form alliances to contain and reduce Mohammedanism. However, the West even in its pre-modern state of fragmented identity never took up these calls for alliances for it feared “Asiatic” dominance. A lesson from this is that hopes from Indo-Western alliances against Mohammedanism are similarly doomed. We will have to fight against the Army of Islam by our own strength, even as our kingdoms had done in the past.

……………
Footnote 1: The parallels in this incident to the subversion of Indian rupees by fake notes printed by Mohammedan subversionists in modern India is striking.

Footnote 2: The fascination of several white indologists and their Japanese imitators have towards al Biruni is not small part because of the similarity the two share with respect to Hindu knowledge: The wish to appropriate Hindu knowledge even while rubbishing it and the Hindus is a common trait they share.

In addition to the above forms, a number of other forms appear to be members of the poposauroid clade: One of the most interesting of these is Yarasuchus from the Yerrapalli Formation near the Rechni village in Andhra (Anisian age). Others include Bromsgroveia from the Anisian of England, Hypselorhachis from the Manda beds of Tanzania (Anisian) and Ctenosauriscus from the Buntsandstein beds of Germany (probably Anisian). By the middle Triassic, or probably even earlier, the poposaurs exploded across Pangea occupying diverse niches across the world. Their Pangean distribution is supported by the recovery of Yarasuchus in India, Qianosuchus, Xilousuchus and Lotosaurus in China, Bromsgroveia and Ctenosauriscus in Europe, Hypselorhachis in Africa, Poposaurus, Arizonasaurus, Shuvosaurus and Effigia in North America and Sillosuchus in South America. This worldwide adaptive radiation of the poposaurs was accompanied by the stabilization of several disparate morphotypes which might have corresponded to the different niches they occupied. We shall briefly consider some these below.

Yarasuchus and Qianosuchus: These two forms emerge as the basal-most poposauroids in different phylogenetic analysis. Both possess certain set of comparable features such as a long neck, small coracoid, curved serrated teeth, leaf-shaped osteoderms and a deep tail. Qianosuchus was found in marine deposits and features such as the deep laterally compressed tail with prominent neural spines, and considerable reduction of the osteoderms might be correlated with a marine lifestyle. However, in contrast its well-developed hind limbs with little ability to splay them laterally (note the prominent supra-acetabular crest on the ilium) appear to be indicative of an erect gait. The skull was equipped with dagger-like teeth with nine on the premaxilla that resemble those of other predatory crocodile-line forms such as Saurosuchus, Prestosuchus and Ticinosuchus. Such teeth are different from the more conical and straight forms found in reptiles with a predominantly piscivorous diet. Together these features suggest that Qianosuchus might have been primarily competent as a terrestrial predator and it probably made facultative forays into the sea for food. A similar possibility presents itself with another crocodile-line archosaur, Ticinosuchus, which is not a poposauroid. While showing predominantly terrestrial adaptations in the skeleton, it was found in marine deposits along with its last meal of fish. This suggests that several of the early terrestrial archosauriformes were competent swimmers that probably hunted fish out at sea. This proclivity might have favored the emergence (semi)aquatic forms on multiple occasions during archosauriform evolution, as suggested by the basal proterochampsids and phytosaurs in the Triassic and the crocodiles later in the Mesozoic (The aquatic birds are kept out of this enumeration because they appear to be a distinctive re-acquisition of such a lifestyle via a different evolutionary path followed by the dinosaur-line).

Yarasuchus, in contrast, shows no indications of a marine association being found alongside a typically terrestrial fauna, which includes the dicynodonts Wadiasaurus and Rechnisaurus, the prolacertid Pamelaria, cynodont stem-mammals (known from teeth) and possibly a stem-archosaur known from fragmentary remains that has been compared with Erythrosuchus without much justification. However, the environment typified by the Yerrapalli formation was certainly characterized by seasonal or permanent water bodies as indicated by the recovery of lung fish denticles/scales and a fragmentary fossil of a temnospondyl of capitosauroid clade comparable to Parotosuchus. Sen proposed it to be a facultative biped in its original description and this is not incompatible with the evidence emerging from other poposauroids. Thus, Yarrasuchus might mark the first emergence of one type of body plan in the poposauroids namely that of a fleet-footed long-necked predator of relatively small prey.

The sail-backs: Xilousuchus, Arizonasaurus, Hypselorhachis and Ctenosauriscus are united into a sail-backed clade of poposaurs. The clade is one of the earliest crown archosaur lineages to have been currently identified, with Xilousuchus appear beside Fugusuchus, a stem archosaur related to Erythrosuchus, and a fragmentary form perhaps related to Proterosuchus. The exact function of their sails remains poorly known. While some have suggested thermoregulation, the sporadic occurrence of this feature across synapsids and archosaurs (both of the crocodile-line and dinosaur-line) points more in the direction of it being a potential intra-specific and sexual signal.

Poposaurus and Bromsgroveia: These appear to represent a distinct clade of poposaurs that were agile bipedal carnivores that might have tackled larger prey than the small-headed Yarasuchus. Gauthier et al.’s detailed analysis suggests that Poposaurus was an obligate biped based on its erect hind-limbs constrained by a supra-acetabular buttress and extremely short forelimbs which they compare to the dinosaur Coelophysis. Given the presence of an upright posture in the phytosaurs, which are stem archosaurs, and the narrow-gauge tracks of early archosauriforms of the crocodile-line, such as the Cheirotherium tracks, it is inferred that all poposaurs were upright in their gait and shortening of their forelimbs led to emergence of bipedal locomotion possibly on multiple occasions. On the other hand, using similar logic it might also be inferred that bipedalism was more widely distributed in the crocodile-line with the rauisuchids proper (i.e. sisters of Postosuchus to the exclusion of poposaurs, prestosuchids and crocodiles) and perhaps ornithosuchids being bipedal. It this were the case then bipedalism could have even emerged in the basal crocodile-line archosaurs. Similarly, it is possible that the dinosaur-line was also basally bipedal (inferred based on Scleromochlus, and the basal dinosauromorphs, Lagerpeton and Marasuchus). This could be extended to infer bipedalism at the base of archosauria with repeated return quadrupedal gaits in both the lines.

Lotosaurus: While Lotosaurus is sail-backed form like those described above, it differs from all of them in having peculiar jaws entirely lacking teeth. This latter feature is shared in common with the shuvosaur clade (see below), and Lotosaurus accordingly groups with them in Nesbitt’s analysis. In this respect it marks one of the earliest known appearances in archosaurs a structure that was repeatedly to appear in both dinosaur-line and crocodile-line archosaur – the beak. Studies of MSY Lee suggest a remarkable evolutionary link between the presence of a caruncle as opposed to regular egg-teeth and the origin of beaks. While both these structures serve a similar function in the perforation of the egg-shell during hatching, the caruncle is a transitory thickening and calcification of the epidermis, whereas the egg-tooth is a true dentinous tooth. In Lee’s theory the caruncle optimizes as a synapomorphy of amniotes and is seen in monotremes, the tuatara, archosaurs and turtles. It has been lost entirely in the therian mammals and in squamates has been displaced by the egg-tooth. Consistent with this beaks emerge only the amniotes that retain a caruncle (that is why no therian has a beak): Among synapsids it has emerged in the enigmatic Dimacrodon, dicynodonts and monotremes like the platypus. In the diapsids it is has emerged in the sphenodontians, and multiply in archosauromorphs, such as trilophosaurs, rynchosaurs, turtles, hupehsuchids and more than one occasion in the crocodile-line and several occasions in the dinosaur-line. In the crocodile-line the poposaurs and aetosaurs appear to represent two independent cases of acquisition of the beak. In general the weight of the evidence seems to support the Lee theory of the origin of the amniote beak: e.g. the presence of a caruncle on both jaws in several lineages of birds (associated with beak formation on both jaws), and the caruncle serve as the initial center for beak keratinization. In any case it is worth noting that the beak seems to have emerged independently far more frequently in the archosauromorph lineage. In light of this, we suspect that there was an additional predisposing factor that tipped the archosauromorphs towards evolving beaks. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of reptilian beta keratins we suspect that this factor might be the emergence of an archosauromorph-specific clade of beta keratins (the basal-most of the archosauromorph keratin clades).

Sillosuchus and the ornithomimosaur mimics: These forms are also likely to have been obligate bipeds. Of these Shuvosaurus and Effigia were strikingly convergent with the ornithomimosaurs, complete with toothless beaked jaws. While they were much smaller forms, Sillosuchus is a gigantic form reaching up to 10 meters in length. Sillosuchus is interesting in that it preserves the pneumatic recess marking the invasion of the air sacs into the cervical and dorsal vertebrae. This supports the emergence of the air sac system prior to the archosaurian radiation (note their possible presence in Erythrosuchus). The large size of Sillosuchus suggests that these forms had probably acquired herbivory, a feature potentially shared with Lotosaurus.

Thus it is rather remarkable that the single clade of stem crocodiles, poposauroids diversified into so many different morphotypes and corresponding ecological niches.

These offer an opportunity to examine the continuity and evolution in the emergence of the imagery of rudra. We shall now briefly examine the last of the above-mentioned texts. In several ways it is related to the ajAnana-virachita rudra stotra attributed to dakSha after he was revived with the head of a goat by rudra. It is found in the 87th chapter of the 3rd parvan of the vulgate text of the harivaMsha and is supposed to have been composed by viShNu to praise rudra. The entire stotra is given below:

namaste shitikaNThAya nIlagrIvAya vedhase |
namaste shochiShe astu namaste upavAsine ||3-87-13
namaste mIDhuShe astu namaste gadine hara |
namaste vishvatanave vR^iShAya vR^iSharUpiNe ||3-87-14
amUrtAya cha devAya namaste.astu pinAkine |
namaH kubjAya kUpAya shivAya shivarUpiNe ||3-87-15
namas tuShTAya tuNDAya namas tuTituTAya cha |
namaH shivAya shAntAya girishAya cha te namaH ||3-87-16
namo harAya viprAya namo hariharAya cha |
namo.aghorAya ghorAya ghora-ghora-tarAya cha ||3-87-17
namo.aghaNTAya ghaNTAya namo ghaTighaTAya cha |
namaH shivAya shAntAya girishAya cha te namaH ||3-87-18
namo virUparUpAya purAya purahAriNe |
nama AdyAya bIjAya shuchaye.aShTasvarUpiNe ||3-87-19
namaH pinAkahastAya namaH shUlAsidhAriNe |
namaH khaTvA~Nga-hastAya namaste kR^ittivAsase ||3-87-20
namaste devadevAya nama AkAsha-mUrtaye |
harAya hari-rUpAya namaste tigmatejase ||3-87-21
bhaktapriyAya bhaktAya bhaktAnAM varadAyine |
namo.abhramUrtaye deva jagan-mUrtidharAya cha ||3-87-22
namash-chandrAya devAya sUryAya cha namo namaH |
namaH pradhAna-devAya bhUtAnAM-pataye namaH ||3-87-23
karAlAya cha muNDAya vikR^itAya kapardine |
ajAya cha namastubhyaM bhUtabhAvanabhAvana ||3-87-24
namo.astu harikeshAya pi~NgalAya namo namaH |
namaste.abhIShuhastAya bhIrubhIruharAya cha ||3-87-25
harAya bhItirUpAya ghorANAM-bhItidAyine |
namo dakSha-makhaghnAya bhaga-netrApahAriNe ||3-87-26
umApate namastubhyaM kailAsa-nilayAya cha |
AdidevAya devAya bhavAya bhavarUpiNe ||3-87-27
namaH kapAlahastAya namo.aja-mathanAya cha |
tryambakAya namastubhyaM tryakShAya cha shivAya cha ||3-87-28
varadAya vareNyAya namaste chandrashekhara |
nama idhmAya haviShe dhruvAya cha kR^ishAya cha ||3-87-29
namaste shaktiyuktAya nAgapAshapriyAya cha |
virUpAya surUpAya madya-pAna-priyAya cha ||3-87-30
shmashAna-rataye nityaM jaya-shabda-priyAya cha |
khara-priyAya kharvAya kharAya khara-rUpiNe ||3-87-31
bhadra-priyAya bhadrAya bhadra-rUpa-dharAya cha |
virUpAya surUpAya mahAghorAya te namaH ||3-87-32
ghaNTAya ghaNTabhUShAya ghaNTa-bhUShaNa-bhUShiNe |
tIvrAya tIvra-rUpAya tIvra-rUpa-priyAya cha ||3-87-33
nagnAya nagna-rUpAya nagna-rUpa-priyAya cha |
bhUtAvAsa namastubhyaM sarvAvAsa namo namaH ||3-87-34
namaH sarvAtmane tubhyam namaste bhUtidAyaka |
namaste vAmadevAya mahAdevAya te namaH ||3-87-35
kA nu vAk-stuti-rUpA te ko nu stotuM prashaknuyAt |
kasya vA sphurate jihvA stutau stutimatAM vara ||3-87-36

kShamasva bhagavan-deva bhakto.ahaM trAhi mAM hara |
sarvAtman-sarvabhUtesha trAhi mAM satatam hara||3-87-37
rakSha deva jagannAtha lokAn sarvAtmanA hara |
trAhi bhaktAn sadA deva bhaktapriya sadA hara ||3-87-38

The attributes that can be traced to earlier texts are:
shitikaNTha (the fair-throated one): YV saMhitA
nIlagrIva (the blue-throated one): YV saMhitA; AV-P
mIDhuShaH (bountiful): RV saMhitA; YV saMhitA; Apastamba mantra-prashna
vR^iSha (the bull): RV saMhitA
deva (the god): RV saMhitA; AV-vulgate; tANDya brAhmaNa
pinAkin (the holder of the pinAka bow): AV-vul; AV-P; YV saMhitA; AV-parishiShTha
shiva (the auspicious one): RV saMhitA; YV saMhitA; AV-vul; AV-P; shvetAshavatara
girisha (mountain rover): YV; AV-P
hara (destroyer): maitrAyaNIya saMhitA; shvetAshavatara; AshvalAyana gR^ihyasUtra; bodhAyana mantraprashna; ApastaMba mantraprashna
aghora (benign): YV-maitrAyaNIya; mahAnArAyaNa; AV-parishiShTha
ghora (terrible): YV-maitrAyaNIya; mahAnArAyaNa; AV-parishiShTha
ghoratara (most terrible): YV-maitrAyaNIya; mahAnArAyaNa; AV-parishiShTha
virUpa (many formed): YV-saMhita
purahAriN (destroyer of the 3 cities): as in tripurAntaka brAhmaNa, i.e., YV-taittirIya brAhmaNa
aShTasvarUpin (8 formed): The 8 names come in the shUlagava mantra, e.g. Apastamba mantraprashna; kaushItakI brAhmaNa; shatapata brAhmaNa
pinAkahasta (holder of the pinAka): YV-saMhitA
kR^ittivAsas (clad in hides): YV-saMhitA
bhUtAnAMpati (lord of the beings): as bhUtapati in AV-Vulgate; AV-P; aitareya-brAhmaNa
muNDa (clean shaven): AV-parishiShTha; as in vyuptakesha in YV-saMhitA
kapardin (with knotted locks): RV-saMhitA; YV-saMhitA; AshvalAyana gR^ihyasUtra; AV-parishiShTha
aja (unborn): shvetAshavatara
harikesha (green/yellow haired): YV-saMhitA
pi~Ngala (tawny): mahAnArAyaNopaniShat; AV-parishiShTha (e.g. uchChuShma and goshAnti)
dakSha-makhaghna (destroyer of dakSha’s ritual): alluded in gopatha-brAhmaNa as destroyer of prajApati’s yAga and AV-parishiShTha in graha-saMgraha
bhaga-netrApahArin (destroyer of bhaga’s eyes): gopatha-brAhmaNa
umApati (husband of umA): mahAnArAyaNopaniShat
bhava (all existence): RV-saMhitA; RV-khila; AV-vul; AV-P; YV saMhitA; Apastamba mantra-prashna; kaushItakI brAhmaNa; shatapata brAhmaNa; AV-parishiShTha
kapAlahasta (skull-wielder): as in kapAlin AV-parishiShTha
tryambaka (the three eyed one): RV-saMhitA; YV-saMhitA; YV-brAhmaNa-s; gopatha brAhmaNa; AV-parishiShTha
dhruva (firm): shvetAshavatara
khara-priya/khara-rUpin (with donkeys): equivalent of the gardabhau mentioned in the AV-P
vAmadeva (the beautiful god): mahAnArAyaNopaniShat
mahAdeva (the great god): AV-vul; AV-P; YV saMhitA; kaushItakI brAhmaNa; AV-parishiShTha

The above analysis shows that the majority of epithets of rudra in this stuti are of Vedic provenance and cover the entire temporal spectrum of Vedic development all the way from the RV to the late upaniShat and parishiShTha texts. However, the stuti shows some developments that have no apparent precedence in much of the surviving Vedic corpus:
1) rudra as the bearer of the shUla. Right in the RV, rudra is repeatedly described as tigmAyudha or tigmaheti, i.e., one with a sharp weapon (may be a cognate of Odin’s spear). However, nowhere is this weapon specified as being a shUla or a trishUla. The word shUla itself occurs in the RV and means a stake, such as that used to roast sacrificial meat in the ashvamedha ritual (could be a doubtful cognate of greek Xulon). In the shUlagava ritual described in the gR^ihya sUtra-s the term again is for the sacrificial stake. But as the name for the sharp weapon of rudra it becomes apparent only in the epic. This points to a semantic expansion of the word shUla to include a sharp weapon. With this expansion, it appears to have taken the place of the tigmAyudha of the veda, perhaps via its use in the shUlagava of rudra. However, it should be noted that the vajra or the thunder-bolt is regarded as a weapon of rudra right from the RV itself. Similarly, tridents are archaeologically attested in depictions on Indus and Mesopotamian sites that overlap temporally with the Vedic period. The bronze age deities of the Middle East are routinely shown with tridents: e.g. Enlil. In many of these bronze age Eurasian icons the trident held by a deity actually stands for the thunder-bolt, which is an equivalent of the vajra (e.g. the iconography of the Hittite Tarhun=Teshub). Hence, it is possible that the trishUla in the classical Agama/purANa iconography of rudra is a conflation of the original vajra, which was historically shown as three-pronged, and the tigmAyudha, which had come to be known as the shUla (as in the above stuti).

2) The khaTvA~Nga/kapAla. The skull as an attribute of rudra is not mentioned in the core saMhitA-s of the shruti and only finds mention in the AV-parishiShTha. Now, the khaTvA~Nga or the skull-topped brand as an attribute of rudra is clearly mentioned for the first time in the texts of great epic layer, for example, as seen in this stuti. Apastamba states in his dharmasUtra (APS 1.28-29) that a murderer who has committed the great sin of killing a brAhmaNa should use a kapAla as a bowl and carry a khaTvA~Nga. Similar gautama states that a brAhmaNa killer should live a celibate life for twelve years carrying a kapAla and a khaTvA~Nga and proclaiming his sin while begging for food (GDS 22.4). A similar statement is found in the baudhAyana dharmasUtra (BDS 2.1.3.1) along with the further injunction that the sinner lives in the cremation ground. The tale of rudra killing prajApati is seen in the RV itself and is repeatedly described in the brAhmaNa-s. This act might have associated rudra, even in the vedic period, with brahmahatyA, as it is done in the purANa-s. This appears to have been the precedence for the transference of the brahmaghna’s attributes to rudra. The celebration of the skull as a “positive” attribute of rudra rather than as a mark of his “dark” side emerges in the purANa-s like the skanda puraNa (vulgate). In the avantikhANDa there is tale of how kapAla-s repeatedly appear in the middle of the vedI when the brAhmaNa-s are performing a ritual to rudra. The brAhmaNa-s place these skulls outside the yaj~nashAlA each time one appears as they were thought to be desecrating the fire. This resulted in a pyramid of skulls accumulating outside the yaj~nashAlA in a particular spot. The brAhmaNa-s later discovered that these skulls were marking the site of the great li~Nga of mahAkAla.

3) The cremation ground dweller/delighter, shmashAna-rati. In the pAraskAra gR^ihyasUtra (3.15) it is declared that one should invoke rudra with the initial R^ik-s of the shatarudrIya, especially when one is passing by cross roads or a cremation ground. This suggests that there was an ancient link between rudra and the cremation grounds, among other wild places, which was more explicitly developed in the texts of the epic layer.

4) chandrashekhara. Right from the veda, rudra was identified with the sun and the moon. Thus, in the rudra recitation of the kaushitaki brAhmaNa we have: “yan mahAn deva Adityas tena |” and “yad rudrash chandramAs tena |”. This is reproduced in the above stuti in: “namash-chandrAya devAya sUryAya cha namo namaH |”. However, in the texts associated with the great epic we have for the first time an iconographic regarding rudra as the bearer of the lunar digit. A lunar association of rudra might be concealed under the vaidika dvandva “somArudrA”. Also related to this link is the fact that in the Eurasian bronze age we find several horned deities. At least in Mesopotamia the bovine horns are taken to represent the crescent moon (e.g. on Nannar or Marduk’s headgear). Hence, it is possible that the lunar crest of rudra is a more direct representation of the horns that are so common in the iconography of bronze age Eurasian deities.

5) The lover of liquors, madya-pAna-priya. The use of psycho-active substances by rudra and his followers is not unknown in the veda itself. In the famous sUkta of the keshin-s (RV 10.136) the keshin drinks the viSha prepared from the kunannamA seeds. While the above stuti explicitly associates liquor with rudra, we can trace the beginning of this association to a special ritual action in the preparation of the beer offered in the Vedic sautramaNI ritual. The shatapata brAhmaNa states (12.7.3.20) that the powdered hair of the lion, tiger and wolf are mixed into the beer because if he mixed the powder into the milk cups he would offer his cattle to rudra pashupati. The liquor is associated with rudra because it makes one “raudra” upon drinking. By putting the hair powder in the beer the ritualist unites the animals which belongs to rudra with him. Thus, pashupati only goes with the wild animals and spares the yajamAna’s domestic animals. In any case the explicit mention in this stuti is an important point because it marks a development in the direction of worship that was to become typical of the vama and bhairava srotas and their kaula evolutes.

6) kubja, the crooked one. This appellation is striking because it was to reappear much later in the tradition of the kubjikA-mata,where rudra is called kubjIshana. At first sight this might seem convergent and based on the name of the shakti kubjikA. But we strongly suspect this is not a coincidence. In fact we suspect that the name has a long history that goes back to the earliest Vedic layers. In RV 1.114 he is called va~Nku that has a meaning similar to kubja. Thus, kubja in the context of rudra and his shakti kubjikA in the mantra-mArga appear to have descended from this old epithet.

The historical importance of this stuti is in establishing the relative era when the classical iconography of rudra became prevalent and also providing evidence for the emergence of certain attributes that were magnified in the non-saiddhAntika srotAMsi. The saiddhAntika srotas emphasizes the benign facets, and “clean” of rudra (now transcending his previous rudra forms as the supreme deity of the Urdhvasrotas, sadAshiva). The other srotAMsi emphasize the terrible, the ferocious and “unclean” aspects of rudra in different combinations and degrees or all of them together. There is hardly any doubt that in the veda the dread of rudra is repeatedly alluded to. To consider a few examples:

1) In the agnihotra ritual the hotar holds out the sruk two times to the north. With this he pleases rudra in his own direction (north) and rudra goes away pleased. If the yajamAna were to stand to the north when the offering is being made he comes in the way of the fierce rudra and could be seized by him (kaushitaki brAhmaNa 2.2, also mentioned in the kaTha and maitrAyaNIya saMhitA-s, gopatha brAhmaNa of the AV tradition, and in the shA~NkhAyana brAhmaNa the northward offering is combined for rudra with Ursa Major). The kaTha and maitrAyanIya texts explain that during this agnihotra offering rudra must be implored for mercy using the mantra-s that contain the special names of rudra, anAbhu (ruthless; anArbhava among the North Indian kaTha-s) and dhUrta (roguish; subsequently this dhUrta mantra is transferred to kumAra). These names are said to be dreadful manifestations of rudra that destroy animals. By using these names he pleases rudra and pacifies him with respect to the yajamAna. At the same time he destroys or drives away those who illegitimately partake of the offerings and harm his ritual.

2) In the tradition of the kaTha-s and the maitrAyaNIya-s a special agnihotra of 12 days is offered if rudra seizes his animals. In this ritual as per the kaTha-s he makes a recitation of an offering mantra where he replaces the name rudra with jAtavedas – an euphemism to avoid the dread of rudra. In the KS and MS it is mentioned that rudra smears the plants with poison and so the cattle are unable to eat it. The poison is removed by prajApati via the action of agni. This is given as reason for the samidh offered to prajApati, and at the same time evokes the dread to rudra.

3) The tradition of the aitareya brAhmaNa the hotar introduces peculiar vikR^iti-s to the R^ik RV 2.33.1 so that the fury of rudra does not fall on the yajamAna:
In place of the actual mantra he recites:
A te pitar marutAM sumnam etu mA naH sUryasya sandR^iSho yuyothAH |
tvaM no vIro arvati kShameta pra jAyemahi rudriya prajAbhiH ||
This brAhmaNa tradition holds that by using “tvaM naH” in place of the original “abhi naH” rudra is not directed toward the yajamAna’s family and cattle. By using rudriya instead of rudra he reduces the terror arising from the mention of the real name of rudra, who has just been described in the brAhmaNa as having slain prajApati. Alternatively the hotar might entirely drop this mantra and substitute it with the gAyatrI to rudra composed by gotamo rAhUgaNa (RV 1.43.6):
shaM naH karatyarvate sugaM meShAya meShye | nR^ibhyo nAribhyo gave ||
The brAhmaNa explains this substitution by indicating that this mantra does not mention rudra by name and thereby averts the terror arising from the mention of his name. Secondly, it begins with the positive word shaM, which indicates auspiciousness.

From these points a paradoxical point of note emerges: On one hand, the veda, while stressing the dread of rudra, avoids any detailed description of the dreadful and unclean forms of rudra and tries to primarily describe his benign facets. The tendency is amplified in the tradition outlined in the aitareya in the substitution followed in the rudra mantra. This is in keeping with the general tendency in the vedic ritual where there is a strong tendency to avoid the mention of dreadful aspects of rudra in ones vicinity. On the other hand, there appears to be a countercurrent (e.g. the agnihotra mantra-s of the KS and MS) to specifically mention the dreadful names of rudra as a means of appeasing his dreadful aspects (also seen to certain degree in the shatarudrIya of the YV saMhitA-s). This appears to represent an ancestral paradox in the rituals to rudra, a dimorphism that appears to have continued in course of the development of the sectarian shaiva system and Hindu literature. In the early layers of the shiva shAsana, there was an emphasis on the benign face of rudra (e.g. his name shiva) and a stress on ritual purity in his worship. This trend is dominant in the shvetAshvatara, atharvashiras and the system of the pAshupata vrata expounded in the AV parishiShTha-s and the pAshupata sUtra-s. It was this tendency that continued with the lakula-s and their kAlAmukha successors and eventually came to be the mainstay of the siddhAnta tantra-s of the mantra mArga with sadAshiva as their central devatA. The above stuti suggests that there was probably a counter-current wherein the emphasis was on the terrible and the unclean aspects of rudra (the stuti gives “both sides of the coin”) even within the early shiva shAsana. This is encapsulated in the names like kapAlin, khaTvA~Ngin, shmashAna-rati, madya-pAna-priya, nagna and making of frightening noises: ghaTighaTa or tuTituTa (compare with names of early bhUta tantra-s of the pashchima srotas: hAhAkAraM, shivAravaM, ghorATTahAsaM and ghurghuraM). This led to the kApAlika tradition of the atimArga that was a mirror of the more purity emphasizing pAshupata-s (that is the version of the atimArga based on the somasiddhAnta texts).

The above is vintage bhoja and points to a signature of the great rAjA – an ability to capture and convey those subtleties of the object under consideration so as to allow its recapitulation by another observant mind who peruses his work. This holds true of whether bhoja is lavishing his attention on a pretty lass, the festival of indra, a cicada, a matter of shaiva doctrine, or a piece of technology. The rAjA composed a work of such portraiture which has been lost, but several fragments of it were preserved by the Kashmirian kavi jalhaNa. In this work, in his portrait of a leech, he observes how the blood meal remains in the gut and can be squeezed out (something you do before you dissect a leech). He then characterizes, with much literary beauty, the oxidation of mercury into cinnabar and the formation of amalgams with other metals. He similarly characterizes the oxidation of silver and its eventual blackening. This quality of bhoja-deva’s portraiture touched his successors in many distinct ways. As an illustration let me point to three of my learned medieval co-ethnics from the drAviDa country: 1) The illustrious rAjanAtha-I diNDima in the Vijayanagaran court in his preface to the works of kAvi-s medieval bhArata mentions bhoja-deva in the very first sarga as a chief among kavI-s and specifically points to this ability of precise recreation of the objective experience in bhoja’s portraiture as the non-dual aesthetic experience or rasAdvaita. 2) rAjanAtha’s wife, abhirAma-kAmAkShI, an eloquent poetess of her own right, is more touched by emotional aspect of bhoja’s works and describes it to be nourishing even as the sun is the energy giver for the people. 3) ve~NkaTAdhvarin, the convert to the rAmAnuja-saMpradAya (the author of a brilliant travelogue of two gandharva-s), notes bhoja-deva to be one of the greatest of his intellectual predecessors. He appreciates bhoja’s ability at uncovering the vidyAsthana or the breadth of knowledge in a given domain by way of illustrating it to the reader so that he might experience it. Thus, we see that bhoja’s special ability in pen-portraiture and his literary theory behind this was clearly understood as being unique by my medieval co-ethnics, among others, who closely studied his works. Yet, this facet of bhoja is something that can only be understood by the erudite. It is largely lost on the less educated, for whom he remains just a legendary ruler the like of which, at best, very few have existed before and perhaps none there after.

Yet there is something more about bhoja that perhaps eluded even the great kavI-s after him. The life and the interests of bhoja were fantastic to them, an extraordinary flash in the twilight of the Hindu sun. They saw this fantastic world of bhoja as being magical like that of the other king in their memory, vikramAditya. But there was something more than just the magical in bhoja’s world. It is this point we hope touch upon.

vikrama’s magical world was the culmination of the sAdhana of a shaiva mantra-vAdin – the mastery over a vetAla that would then serve your purposes. With its subjugation, vikrama had access to enormous magical capabilities that vetAla brought along. Even in the paramAra period itself, kings of dhAra identified with vikrama. Hence, it is not surprising if the later kavI-s imparted the same magical aura on bhoja-deva who was seen as a fitting “successor” of the sAhasA~Nka. But what is often missed is that the fantastic element in bhoja-deva’s world are his mechanical contrivances – perhaps forgotten behind the tragic curtain that was beginning to be drawn over Hindu civilization, even as his reign was inaugurated. These elements might include apparently more down-to-earth technologies, like the air-conditioned pavilion, that partly survived in the region, as suggested by the architecture of the later bundelA rAjA-s. This type of pavilion is mentioned in the introduction of his shR^i~NgAra-ma~njari, where bhoja and his learned friends retire on a summer day for a literary discussion. From the much later palaces of the region we learn that these air-conditioning process involved interesting constructions that facilitated flow of air currents into the building that were then cooled via passage over water. But bhoja’s devices were evidently more elaborate with a water-power driven yantra sending counter-current streams of water to enable more efficient exchange of heat. But this is just the simplest in the array of mechanical devices that adorn this pleasure pavilion of the paramAra monarch. The next contrivance of note is one that filters light of the blazing Bhopal sun to only allow a diffuse green glow in the pavilion. But the most striking feature of the pavilion was its yantra-putrikA-s or robots – bhoja mentions a rather impressive collection which included those that played drums, those that poured water from their hands, robotic tortoises and fishes in water and a clock that shows the muhUrta-s of the day. Rather remarkable is also the pattanikA device that bhoja-deva mentions in the shR^i~NgAra-prakAsha. From its description it appears like a “photographic” device which could take an detailed image of person on thin piece of cloth – it is said to be have been used by a man to recognize his woman, via her image that appeared on the pattanikA. A mundane interpretation of the pattanikA can be that it was a merely an imprint of the woman’s body based on the pigments she had smeared on herself. However, it is clear that the pattanikA had the function of a real image that could be used to identify her specifically. It takes the place of the drawing made by a pen or brush that is often mentioned in earlier India literature as means by which lovers identify each other (for example in daNDin’s dashakumAra-charita). So it is clear that the pattanikA was rather unusual innovation, unique to bhoja, taking the place of the common place drawing/painting of Sanskrit literature. So, was it a part of his “science-fiction”, like his robot that was supposed to have human speech ability or was it a real device ( one could think of a wood-cut printing device, why would one need this when drawings/painting already existed)? Unfortunately, we may not know because the like of this is never again seen in Indian literature.

However, of the yantra-s we know more from bhoja’s own text, the samarA~NgaNa-sUtradhAra (chapter 31). This work preserves within it some of the few surviving fragments of old Hindu applied physical thought. One key point to notice is bhoja’s definition of a yantra: He begins by stating that the solid, liquid, gaseous, thermal elements and their underlying substratum space are by nature intimately connected in existence, actions and movements. But one can regulate the interaction between these elements in a specific way, and this results in what is called a yantra (i.e. a machine). Then bhoja explains that a machine might be decomposed into bIja-s or fundamental constituents which correspond to its composition, i.e. it being the solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal element in the machine. These yantra bIja-s by themselves are not capable of any activity but when two, three or four distinct bIja types are combined then a yantra capable of work might be formed. In addition to the combination of the bIja-s involved the diversity of yantra-s also arises from degree to which a particular bIja is used in it, with the most vital component being its primary bIja. Thus, bhoja states:
bhUtam ekam ihodriktam anyadhInam tato.adhikam | anyadhInataram chAnyad evam prAyair vikalpitaH | nAnA bhedA bhavanty eShAm kastAn kArtsnena vashyati |

The solid bIja is described as encompassing at the first level the materials used in machine construction such as the preferred metals which are listed as iron, copper, silver, tin and their alloys, wood, leather and fibers. In different combinations these comprise the next level the structural components of the yantra and the simple machines and vectorial elements in it (like levers, pulleys and cogwheels).

The gaseous bIja, primarily air, is capable of function when it is contained in a tight chamber or when it interfaces with three simple machine elements, that bhoja describes as bellows (expansion of contraction of a containing membrane), a windmill or fan (production of rotation) or a flap (production of oscillatory motion). He mentions four technical terms as being the primary modes by which the properties of gaseous bIja of a yantra might be put use: 1) uchChrAya: e.g. the upward movement of the gas when confined beneath a liquid. 2) Adhikya: The ability of inducing volumetric increase of a gas. 3) atyantam-UrdhvAgAmitvam: explosive expansion. 4) ayAsya: fluidity and ability to occupy space.

The liquid bIja is similarly analyzed with an emphasis on its properties described by the following technical terms: 1) saMgR^ihIta, i.e., its ability to accumulate in containers. 2) pUrita, i.e., occupying space. 3) datta – the ability of a liquid to be a uniform interface to transmit force. 4) pratinodita – the resistance or reaction to compression.

The thermal bIja is present primarily as a source of power for the yantra. Its main actions can only be elicited via the other three bIja-s like by heating them to cause expansion, or by providing energy to the system to favor mixing and finally aid in the dissolution of substances in liquids.

Then the rAjA explains that the combinations of the bIja-s should be such as to generate certain types of motions which might include (for example via a liquid-gas interface) translational motion due to impact (abhighAta), rotation (vivarta) and revolution (bhramaNa). This analytical framework in bhoja’s work is a presentation of the ideas of applied mechanics that had been developed as a result of the sAMkhya and nyAya-vaisheShika thought in the late vedic and early post-vedic Hindu world. It clearly shows that bhoja was serious about the yantra-s being real mechanical entities rather than pure magical one as was imagined by many later authors. It reinforces the evidence for the great technological interest in the parmAra court which ranged from monumental engineering (e.g. the largest artificial lake of the medieval world) to the creation of yantra-s. While these yantra-putrikA-s were possibly merely a culmination of an earlier tradition of their manufacture on a limited scale in the ancient world, it also appears bhoja had a rather ambitious take on them. We may describe this, in a sense, as even being futuristic, as he seems to have held the view that these yantra-s could be taken to their ultimate conclusion – i.e., the yantra-s that can manufacture human speech. Indeed, in the shR^i~NgAra ma~njarI he conceives robots that would imitate human speech when he is cornered by his friends to talk about himself; he has the robot provide a biographical account. Perhaps, his conception of the powered glider or airplane that we encounter in the samarA~NgaNa-sutradhAra was in a similar vein. What were nature of his experiments with them? Of that we know little. Thus, even the fantastic in the world of bhoja was ultimately a mechanical one. Verily, it appears that the rAjA might have been at home in the modern world with many of his yantra-s being really present. There is no telling where this technological bubble in the paramAra realm might have headed had it not petered out sometime after bhoja-deva. Instead, all that survived in the Indic world was the legend of the throne of vikrama which he ascended that was adorned by talking images. To me there is no doubt that the choice of talking images was a faint memory of bhoja’s conception of the talking robot that was to embellish his court. But the lesson of a great civilization and its technology ending with the rampage of the shashidhvaja remains relevant for bhArata even today. If a man of bhoja’s ardor had devoted himself in entirety to expelling the turuShka-s from the Arya-bhUmI he would probably done so, but then he chose to do something of everything (After all, he gave refuge to the last shAhIya trilochanapAla of gandhAra who was driven out after a heroic struggle against Mahmud Ghaznavi and led an army to expel the turuShka-s from pa~nchAla and vAhIka in the 1020s. Then again he led the Hindu forces to drive out the turuShka-s from sthAnIshvara during Masud’s invasions in 1043). It is on this account we at least know something of the width of Hindu though and technology.

The textual corruptions have resulted in some confusion among the readings of the mantra-s. The most common problem is the correct interpretation of the number of the mAtR^i-s of the kumAra kula. One tAntrika interpretation notes 14 mAtR^i-s as part of a 14 pointed maNDala. However, the version given above is the form preserved in the oral tradition of the taittirIyaka-s who follow the bodhAyana sUtra (like my maternal clan). The published bodhAyana mantra pATha (and its otherwise best-preserved manuscript) and the sUtra text have corrupt readings at different points which can be recombined to create a “critical” reading completely concordant with the oral version. In this reading the kumAra kula consists of only 12 mAtR^i-s. These are: 1) AveshinI (the possessor); 2) ashrumukhI (bloody faced); 3) kutuhalI (the eager one); 4) hastinI (the elephant headed one); 5) jR^imbhiNI (the stretching one); 6) staMbhinI (the paralyzer); 7) mohinI (the deluder); 8) kR^iShNA (the black one); 9) viShAkhA (having he form of vishAkha, one of the 4 kaumAra mUrti-s); 10) vimalA (the unblemished one); 11) brahmarAtrI (the epoch of universal dissolution); 12) bhrAtR^ivya-saMgeShu-patanti (one who falls upon the enemy hordes).
The last name has been broken up into two separate names in certain interpretations but this is not the case in original vaidika form because it neither supported by manuscript nor oral tradition. Some might also interpret the amoghAH as a further name of a mAtR^ikA. This interpretation is supported by the presence of the name amoghA as one of the mAtR^ikA-s in the trayodasha-prAkArIya pa~nchadashi kaumAra chakra and the equivalent kaumAra circuit described in the mahAbhArata. However, it being in plural, in the vaidika mantra provided above it is likely to be a description of all the mAtr^i-s of the kula (i.e. meaning they are infallible). The accentation (i.e. positions of the udAtta-s) of few of the names in second hemistich of the devInAm mantra is corrupt in the published form of the mantra prashna and needs to be known from oral tradition.

A plot of the words Sanskrit/Sanscrit and Hindoo/Hindu in English literature from 1790-2010 using the Google Ngram viewer.
* Note the steady change in with Hindoo and Sanscrit being replaced in English by Hindu and Sanskrit.
* we see a rise usage of the term Hindoo/Hindu following the British defeat in the first Anglo-Maratha war (1783) and marks the increasing awareness of the English regarding the primary roadblock to the most profitable of all their colonial ventures. Since that point on we see a increase in the term Hindu/Hindoo with spurts of interest coinciding with the final Anglo-Maratha wars (1818) and the early period of consolidation (1820-1840) after that as the British sought to complete their conquest of India. This period also sees the beginning of the widespread English interest in Sanskrit (under the orthography Sanscrit) as they sought to interpret the people whom they were subjugating. This phase of the English “discovery” of Sanskrit resulted in William Jones version of the Indo-European hypothesis, which was similar in core principles to that of Indic scholars of Urdu and Persian like Arzu and Anand rAm.

*In the period between 1840-1858 we see a general dip in the terms Sanskrit/Sanscrit and Hindu/Hindoo. We see this an important textual correlate of the prelude to the first war of independence in 1857-1858. The English felt they had gained the upper hand in the subcontinent and that the Indians were a depraved subject people with nothing much of interest to write about. This probably correlated with the oppressive actions of the English towards their new subjects which sparked the first war of independence.

*1859 onwards we see the beginnings of the big change. The first war of independence had floundered and the English had finally completed the conquest of Hindustan. As new rulers of the land they started using more appropriate orthography for Hindu terms with great frequency. Hindu and Sanskrit start peaking around the 1880s and mark the great wave of orientalism or the western romantic interest in Sanskrit and Hindu thought.

*In this phase the Hindus started recovering from the aftermath of the brutalities of the English suppression of the great rising of 1857. This is when we see the revival of Indian freedom movements and consequently an English reaction towards all things Hindu and the gradual decline in both Hindu and Sanskrit on the graph. In a sense this mirrors the situation between 1840-1858. Additionally, this period also saw the Abrahmistic fight-back that sought to purge Western thought of its flirtations with their ancestral Indo-European connections that were inspired by the collision with India.

*In the phase between 1940-48 we see a spike in the use of Hindu though Sanskrit continues to decline. This is the only phase were the two are notably decoupled. We suspect that this is a reflection of the peaking national consciousness of Hindus writing in English, associated with the final push towards freedom from English rule.

*We then see a peak in both the terms Hindu and Sanskrit starting in the 1960s and ending in the late 1980s after which it has been a general downward trend. This new phase marks the new invasion of the west by Sanskritic culture backed by the Hindu and bauddha teachers carrying their systems to the USA and also neo-Orientalism (Frits Staal, agehAnanda etc). Its eventual decline beginning in the 1990s marks a combination of: 1) the mlechCha secret-agent backed framing of Indic teachers in scandals usually of a sexual type; 2) The Malhotran U-turn resulting in the return of mlechCha-s to their Abrahamistic roots. 3) The general decline in funding for Sanskrit and Hindu related studies with the imposition of South Asianism by the mlechCha-s.

*Some of the above discussion is also recapitulated by the term “buddha” suggesting that it generally captures genuine trends regarding Indic matters. Also note the invention of the terms Hinduism and Buddhism by the British and their eventual imposition on the world at large.

Regarding the term South Asian we have always held that it is an US-inspired Anglospheric attempt to back Pakistani legitimacy and delegitimize the Indian cultural and power projection on the sub-continent – their natural sphere of action. The graphs simply reinforce this point we have made before.

This then leads to two questions: 1) Should those Hindus who can impact the funding situation (e.g. think of the money Infosys recently donated) do anything about the situation of indology? 2) Once the decision is made to provide funding independently of the DoS and the mlechCha psyops systems how should we structure the indology teaching?

To get to this bottom of this let us again turn to the pitAmaha of American indologists Daniel Ingalls. He was certainly a man of great brilliance and understanding. He was a US patriot serving as an espionage agent in Asia in various capacities during the American quest for world dominance. Other than his anti-Japanese action, his main action as a secret agent was in Afghanistan, in part laying the ground work for the future American designs on that region. But, more importantly, he was also part of the American team in Afghanistan helping the English rAj to prevent Indians trying to liberate bhArata by gaining help from the Germans and Japanese. In this he was aided by another American academic Richard Frye who is well-know for this historical research on central Asia. Outside of military service he was well-off as a heir to his family business in the travel industry. His initial education was not in Sanskrit but in the Greco-Roman classics and poetry and he a good background in mathematical representations of logic and geometry (he worked as mathematics teacher in his days as a spasha). As a consequence Ingalls had certain key characteristics that differentiated him from other typical academics, especially in the business of indology: 1) As a patriot he, importantly, had no identity crisis, which was making him seek India and Indic thought as a means of filling an identity vacuum. A corollary to this was his immunity from the now common Malhotran U-turn – being grounded in his own svadeshya he had no need to go elsewhere and then rediscover his previously missing identity with a vengence. 2) He was a relatively wealthy man with his own business and was pursuing academics out of interest rather than necessity. Thus, he was a capitalist, a pragmatist and political conservative and was not swayed by the Marxism that was so typical of his colleagues and successors. Hence, he disagreed strongly with Kosambi on Marxist interpretations, while collaborating with him on issues concerning saMskR^ita. 3) He served his country militarily, at times working against the interests of our rAShTra, but he studied Indic thought rather objectively in the spirit of mutual respect. When it came to learning shAstra-s he realized the importance of doing so directly from Hindu scholars in India rather than doing so in absentia in the comforts of the US (Here, one may contrast him with Jan Gonda who did a pretty good job of acquiring an encyclopedic knowledge of saMskR^ita and Javan in absentia). So he journeyed to Kolkata to study navya nyAya directly from one of its last savants kAlIpada-tarkAchArya who upheld the intellectual traditions of the great vAchaspati mishra or he went to Pune to study with the jaina muni jambuvijaya.

These characteristics helped him develop as a genuine scholar of Hindu thought – he was able to appreciate the advances of navya nyAya, while at the same time he was also able to appreciate saMskR^ita poetry for what it was. He did not try to reinterpret it through the lens of western constructs. It is because of this he was able to penetrate one of those great poetic works of Anandavardhana, the devI shataka. Reciprocally, traditionally grounded Hindu academics (i.e. not the secular types) such as shatAvadhAnI gaNesh feel a resonance with Ingalls (mentioned in his interview by Balagangadhara). By all accounts his teaching of saMskR^ita was said to be top class resulting in about 50 graduate students getting PhDs in course of his career. His recommendation most of us would second – to get a grasp of the devavANI read the kathasaritsAgara and the mahAbhArata closely. Thus, at face value it would appear that we need the ideal indologist to be like Ingalls and funding his program would be a worthy investment for someone like Infosys or Mahindra.

I freely admit that there might be certain truth to this. Yet, we have no Ingalls around today, and the ground reality with his students is far more troubling. A notable number of them have ultimately hostile attitudes towards the Hindu system while professing overtly to be its friends.

continued…

Another set of late loans into New Indo-Aryan tongues happened due to the Mohammedan occupation of part of jambudvIpa. This brought in more than three influences into the subcontinent which include Arabic, the original language of the Mohammedans, Persian, the language adopted by the Mohammedans as a literary language from Iran, and Turkic and Mongolic, which were the native languages of the post-Arab waves of Islamic marauders entering India. Early Turkic invasions following those of Shahabuddin Ghori resulted in the establishment of Mohammedan governments but they made little impact on the language of the the Hindus – they were simply massacred or made to pay jaziya in the zones were the arm of the sultan and the ulema held sway. But the “integrative” phases during the Padishaw Akbar’s reign in the Mogol north and the reigns of Chand Bibi and Ibrahim Adil Shah-II in the south resulted in greater linguistic interaction. In particular, Akbar’s Hindu finance minister Todarmal started using Persian in the administrative transactions of the Mogol empire, Chand Bibi relying on mahArATTa mercenaries and Ibrahim Adil Shah-II composing Persian works on Hindu topics. As a consequence we see an abundance of Islamic loans in the NIA languages especially in works pertaining to administration and music. But what we wish to touch upon here is the conscious and sub-conscious knowledge of and consequences of the underlying homology between Iranian and Indo-Aryan in the medieval period.

The earliest apparent signs of the recognition of the homology of Sanskrit and Avestan was due to the efforts of the great Iranian ritualist dastUr nairyosangha dhAvala who transliterated and translated the Avesta into Sanskrit, prior to the 1200s of CE and noticed many facets of the deep homology between the two languages and also the systems of the veda and the avesta.

We can then fast forward to the late 1600s when the bloody 26 year jihad of Awrangzeb in South India was underway. We see three major trends that were emerging among subcontinental Mohammedans at the point of the demise of the Mogol empire: 1) The first of these may be termed the Arabists, who looked to the core of their cult arising from the Koran and the Hadith and the wished to see the dominance of the Dar-ul-Islam after it had cleansed al Hind of its heathens. On a more global scale they wished to establish a pan-Islamic Sunni Kilafat that would govern over a Sharia governed world rid of all its Kafirs. Awrangzeb’s ulema were the upholders of this ideal and felt triumphal as he crushed the Hindus and marched into this great Jihad on the South. But with the mAhArATTa resilience overcoming Awrangzeb’s charge and with the mAhArATTa-s reaching Delhi this faction became both despondent and desperate casting about for supporters. They got a new lease of life with the formation of TSP and TSB in the second half of the 1900s, the continuing Euro-American support for them against India and Russia, and are master-minds of modern Islamic terrorism and modern articulations of Islam in the world. 2) The second faction was also pan-Islamist and had some support from Awrangzeb and more specifically several members of his court. While this faction saw Islam as the binder of society in the form of a normative scaffold, it prefered Persian over Arabic as its linguist foundation. Some of the Mogol princes, like Akbar the son of Awrangzeb, were members of this camp. This faction was more interested in the imposition of a Persian cultural idiom over the whole of Hind rather than an Arabic one and saw the Indians as degenerate not only on account of their infidel ways but also due to their relative ineptitude in Persian compared to the Moslems of Iran. There was internal tension in this faction due to the divide between the Sunni Mogols and the Shia’s from Iran. The more hardline Islamic sub-division within this faction has survived to date and given rise the modern Islamic state that occupies Iran (remember even Khomeini’s ancestors were from bhArata). The Shah who ruled it before that belonged to the more Persian oriented sub-division with this faction. 3) The final trend among the Mohammedans of Hindustan were those open to a more syncretic cultural system wherein the Hindi influences (i.e. Sanskrit and its daughters and nieces) also find a place in their world view alongside their Arabic and Persian heritage. In linguistic terms the most generic manifestation of this trend was the emphasis on Urdu as a vehicle of literary and cultural expression as against Arabic or Persian. Unlike the pure Islamic artistic expressions this stream could go beyond geometric patterns on Mazars and Masjids or calligraphy of the Koran to embrace the forbidden arts such as North Indian classical music and philosophical contemplation along Hindu lines. Indeed members of this stream like the Mogol Naziri even boldy states that he visits Hindu temples to the point he feels guilty when he sees a true Mohammedan. The modern day Bollywood finds one of its roots in this third stream. As long as there was an active Mohammedan power this stream tended was always under the risk of being subsumed under the remaining two streams and this eventually happened in both TSP and residual India.

It was in this Indo-Islamic world that Hisam-al-din of Agra was a ghazi in Awrangzeb’s jihad and spent his life fighting Hindus. He belonged to the second category with Persophile tendencies. His son was Siraj-al-din Arzu was however of a man of very different temperament. He acquired his deep knowledge of Persian and Arabic as part of his ancestral tradition, but rather than a ghazi, he was a faqir of learned disposition and acquired considerable interest in North Indian classical music and its underlying Hindu foundations, thus belonging to the third stream. At the age of 32 he arrived in Delhi and befriended a scholarly kShatriya in Delhi of the name Anand rAm, who helped him find patronage and gain an understanding of Sanskrit and Hindi. Though a Mohammedan, Arzu was rather unorthodox in participating in Hindu festivals and thereby acquired a closer understanding of Hindu traditions. Amongst his many students was a kShatriya student of the name munshi Tekchand, with whom he delved into a comparative study of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. As consequence of this unusual interaction during the devolution of the Mogol empire the school of Arzu, Anand rAm and Tekchand made a rather profound discovery: tavafuq al lisanayn, to use Arzu’s term, i.e. the linguistic homology between Persian and Sanskrit. They used these concordances to ascertain correctness of certain Persian words based on the principles of linguistic homology. While there were some errors in their formulation, these discoveries laid the foundations of modern linguistics and the discovery of Indo-Iranian and subsequently Indo-European. One of the points that appears to have been noticed in the lexicons compiled by these scholars were the behavior of Iranian loans in Indo-Aryan. It is a modern examination of such lateral transfers that give us some interesting clues regarding certain apparent underlying constraints in word acquisition by Indo-Aryan.

One feature that is routinely observed (as also noted by the modern linguist Masica) is the change of the value of the vowel in several Persian words when transferred to Indo-Aryan. Thus we have roz in Urdu/Hindustani/Marathi as against the Persian rUz (daily); sher instead of shIr [lion] or sipAhI for sepAhi [soldier]. Why this change happens is not entirely known. It is quite possible that this is due to Persian being delivered first via a Turkish intermediate rather than directly via the Moslems of Iran.

It is also notable is that words were the homology was clear the Persian equivalent was often used side-by-side or in place of the Indo-Aryan one. Masica uncovered a bunch of such examples which are recognized by the medieval lexicographers like Arzu and Anand rAm. Thus Persian band for IA bandha is frequently used in constructions such as kamarband or galeband; stan for IA sthAna (place) in formation of place names, words like jAn from Persian which is related to the IA jantu (life) or nAch a cognate of IA nR^itya (dance) or jAdU cognate of yAtu (used for magic) or jigar for yAkR^it (liver). In other cases the pure NIA tends to diverge from Urdu especially if the latter displays an Arabic analog rather than a ortholog or the Persian word is not a cognate. Thus, a pure NIA speaker would use prem instead of muhabbat (love); Anand instead of khushI; shAnti instead of itmInAn; kR^ipA instead of mehrbAnI and krodh instead of gussA. Further, the suffixes of Iranian of the -I type were easily taken up by pure Indo-Aryan due to their orthology to the -Iya type suffixes of OIA. Thus we have hindustAnI, ba~NgAlI, angrezI etc. But other kinds of prefix constructs of the be- type were not easily take outside of Urdu, as the old nir- prefix was preferred: nirlajj instead of be-lajj or the correct Persian besharam. Now the secularized or Bollywoodized Hindus indignantly declare that this is not true and people always used the Urduized form of the NIA languages. They may object that this pure NIA I am talking about is a figment of my imagination or the creation of Hindu “obscurantists” like bharatendu or the learned AchArya raghuvIra and his son shrI lokeshchandra. This is however simply not true because what I talk about is evident in mahArATTI which was certainly nor influenced by the names mentioned above!

Row 1: The Sinitic form; Row 2: Eoraptor (from Witmer/Digimorph); Row 3: Herrerasaurus (from Witmer/Digimorph); Row 4: Tawa; Row 5: Coelophysis (from Witmer) left and Dilophosaurus reconstruction from AMNH, NY; Row 6: Panphagia.

Clearly this new form lacks of the gap/notch below the external naris at the junction between the premaxilla and maxilla that is so typical of the paraphyletic grade of basal theropods including Tawa hallae, Coelophysis and Dilophosaurus. It also lacks the pointed rostrum that is typical of these theropods or the anterior elongation seen in some of them. The lower jaw lacks the vertical expansion seen in the symphyseal region, unlike the condition on Coelophysis or Dilophosaurus. Thus the Sinitic form in question is certainly not a coelophysoid or even a sister group of the more primitive Tawa. Instead, it shows certain features resembling even more primitive theropods like Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus and even what is considered one of the most basal sauropodomorphs, Panphagia. Thus we have a dinosaur that promises to further fill in that gap at the base of the theropod tree, just like the other recent find Tawa. But what makes it rather more remarkable is the fact that it is from the lower Jurassic, whereas the other basal forms to which it is comparable are all from the Triassic! This suggests that the basal dinosaurian architectures survived considerable later than previously believed.

A feature of animal macro-evolution is the persistence of forms with primitive characters. In several cases this is accompanied by spatial isolation – we have the monotremes surviving in Australia, where the more derived forms were absent until much later. But a more striking tendency is the survival of primitive forms coevally with their more derived sister groups. The late-surviving heterodontosaur Tianyulong appears to be one example of this. Earlier in dinosaurian evolution we find Tawa coexisting with dinosauromorphs like Dromomeron and Eucoelophysis, a herrerasaurid, Chindesaurus, and a possible coelophysoid. Thus, we find that various primitive and derived versions of the dinosaur-line were simultaneously co-occurring in the Ghost Ranch fauna. This suggests that displacement of primitive characters is not all temporally uniform. It appears that several forms with primitive characters can acquire a small set of adaptations that allow them to strongly compete and thereby persist over long periods (retaining most of their primitive characters), even as their more derived sister groups are radiating beside them. We suspect that the ultimate loss of primitive characters from the faunal pool has got a lot to do with recovery from extinction events – steady displacement by more derived forms upon their emergence might not be the only factor. Further, this recovery from extinction event might be unequal across the different faunas of the world. Thus, in the middle of Norian age of the Triassic there were dinosauromorphs, herrerasaurids, forms like Tawa, coelophysoids and basal neotheropods like Zupaysaurus, probably in several faunas around the world. But during the T/J transition the dinosauromorphs, herrerasaurids and other basal theropods did not recover strongly from the extinction whereas coelophysoids and more advance neotheropods did. However, in Asia it appears that some of the basal theropods did recover from the extinction and continued persisting as suggested by this new animal.

This finally leads us to a brief discussion on our current understanding of the early evolution of dinosaurs. The earliest currently known dinosaur is Eoraptor which is dated to 228 Mya. Recent studies on ichnofossils from Poland by Brusatte et al suggest that the dinosaur-line was already present in the Early Olenekian (~249–251 Mya), just a few million years after the great Permian/Triassic extinction (252.3 Mya). The earliest of these members of the dinosaur-line appear to have been primitive dinosauromophs, though true dinosaurs could have well emerged as early as 246 Mya as indicated by the Polish Sphingopus tracks. Thus, we have a major lacuna in our understanding of the first 18 million years of dinosaur evolution, despite several recent advances pertaining to dinosauromorphs and early dinosaurs. Currently we have the following reasonably characterized early dinosaurs-
Ornithischians: Pisanosaurus from the Carnian-Norian of South American; Eocursor from the Norian of South Africa.
Sauropodomorphs: These appear to include a basal grade from the the Carnian typified by Panphagia, Saturnalia, Guaibasaurus, Chromogisaurus and perhaps Agnosphitys. Later in the Norian there was an explosive radiation with multiple forms such as Thecodontosaurus, Pantydraco, Efraasia, Ruehleia, Plateosauravus, Plateosaurus, Unaysaurus, Riojasaurus, Eucnemesaurus, Coloradisaurus, Mussaurus, Melanorosaurus, Blikanasaurus, Antetonitrus and Lessemsaurus.
Theropods: From the Carnian we have Eoraptor, the herrerasaurids, Herrerasaurus and Staurikosaurus. From the Norian we have the herrerasaurid Chindesaurus, Tawa, Coelophysis bauri, Liliensternus, Lophostropheus, Procompsognathus and Zupaysaurus.

At the face of it appears that the stem sauropods were most diverse while the ornithischians were the most sparse and rare. While there might be some truth to this picture of relative abundance it should be kept in mind that the ornithischians and theropods began their careers as small animals and might have been poorly preserved relative to their sauropod relatives. The phylogeny of these early forms has also been considerably debated. The discovery of Tawa seems to support the view that the herrerasaurids as including Herrerasaurus, Staurikosaurus and Chindesaurus are monophyletic and theropods. Further, Tawa also pull Eoraptor as a more derived theropod than the herrerasaurids. On the other hand Ezcurra et al recover a basal sauropodomorph clade comprised of Panphagia, Saturnalia, Guaibasaurus, Chromogisaurus and Agnosphitys. Further Langer et al, who discovered the dinosauromorph Sacisaurus, feel that the sillesaurids (currently including Lewisuchus, Asilisaurus, Technosaurus, Eucoelophysis, Sillesaurus and Sacisaurus) are closer to the ornithischians rather than being a sister-group to all dinosaurs. But none of these phylogenetic hypothesis are well-supported. Examination of the supplementary material provide by the authors of the Tawa study shows that any of these grouping could breakdown with additional data. In fact, various authors have found herrerasaurids, Eoraptor, Guaibasaurus variously as basal theropods, stem saurischians outside of the sauropodomorph-theropod divide or stem dinosaurs outside of the ornithischian-saurishchian divide. These features suggest that our understanding of the relationships of early dinosaurs stands to change with new finds.

The considerable similarities between Panphagia, Saturnalia, Guaibasaurus and Eoraptor suggest that they are rather close to the ancestral state of the saurischian clade. This ancestor was likely to have been a small bipedal omnivore or carnivore and an ecological generalist. At least early in their radiation the sauropodmorphs appear to have retained this morphology, though by the Norian they were already on their way towards becoming the most colossal land vertebrates. We can be less certain of the state of the ancestral dinosaur itself due to scarcity of the early ornithischian record. In recent analysis the sillesaurs appear as the closest sister group of the dinosaurs and including them within dinosauria or as a sister group to ornithischia makes the trees somewhat less parsimonious. These sillesaurs as currently reconstructed do not however appear as good proxies for the ancestral dinosaur. They appear to be quadrupedal herbivores with a specialized beaked skull and probably represent an early successful, global radiation of dinosauromorphs close to the origin of dinosaurs. Thus, in a sense they may have moved away from the ancestral condition for dinosaurs. The next closest sister group of the dinosaurs is Marasuchus from the Anisian age of the Middle Triassic of South America. This form might have certain features closer to the common ancestor of all dinosaurs. In particular the hindlimbs appear particularly close to the expected ancestral conditions. It is not clear if the forelimbs of this form are representative of the ancestral dinosaurian state. The basal-most dinosauromorphs are the lagerpetonids like Lagerpeton and Dromomeron which are from the Ladinian and later ages of the Triassic. The lack of complete fossils of this lineage makes it unclear as to how close they were to the ancestral state of the dinosaurs. Thus, despite the recent advances in the dinosauromorph relationships many issues remain rather unclear.

If he wishes to perform the great prayoga he shall have 4 beautiful women as uttara-sAdhaka-s. He shall first consecrate himself as per the received lore and then consecrate the uttara-sAdhaka-s with the appropriate names. He shall hold a shara reed in his left hand offer with a darvi held in his right hand. He shall then deploy the below form of the viliste~NgA vidyA:
yA indrapriye tirashchI nipadyate.ahaM vidharaNI iti tAM tvA ghR^itasya dhArayA yaje viliste~NgAM vasiShThAM AsurIm mAyAm aham svAhA ||
Then he shall deploy aindra mAdhava mantra:
rUpaM rUpaM pratirUpo babhUva tadasya rUpaM pratichakShaNAya|
indro mAyAbhiH puru-rUpa Iyate yuktA hyasya harayaH shatA dasha ||
He shall offer after this verse with a: phaT |
Then he shall intertwine the above form of the viliste~NgA vidyA with the aindra collection known to the practitioners of the taittirIya shruti as atharvashiras. He shall offer oblations after each mantra of the atharvashiras with a: phaT | Then he shall deploy the mantra:
tvaM mAyAbhir apa mAyino.adhamaH svadhAbhirye adhi shuptAv ajuhvata |
tvaM pipror nR^imaNaH prArujaH puraH pra R^ijishvAnaM dasyu-hatyeShv Avitha ||
He offers the shara reed with: khaT phaT mR^it ||
Then he deploys that which the taittirIyaka-s call the pratya~NgirasaM.

I am attempting to correct the readings as per my tradition:
OM shrUM shrUM shrUM shaM phaT aiM hrIM klIM jvalojvala prajvala hrIM hrIM klIM srAvaya srAvaya shApaM mochaya mochaya shrAM shrIM shraM jUM saH AdAya AdAya svAhA || 1
OM shloM huM gloM jUM saH jvalojvala mantrAn prabalaya prabalaya haM saM laM kShaM svAhA || 2
OM aM kaM chaM TaM taM paM sAM bindur-Avirbhava bindur-Avirbhava vimardaya vimardaya haM kShaM kShIM strIM jivaya jivaya troTaya troTaya jambhaya jambhaya dIpaya dIpaya mochaya mochaya huM phaT jrAM vauShaT aiM hrIM klIM ra~njaya ra~njaya saMjaya saMjaya gu~njaya gu~njaya bandhaya bandhaya bhrAM bhrIM bhrUM bhairavI bhadre saMkucha saMkucha saMchala saMchala troTaya troTaya mlIM svAhA || 3

namaste rudra-rUpAyai namaste madhu-mardini |
namaste kaiTabhAryai namaste mahiShamardini || 4
namaste shuMbha-hantryai cha nishuMbhAsura-sUdini |
namaste jAgrate devi jape siddhiM kurUShva me || 5
aiMkArI sR^iShTirUpiNyai hrIMkArI pratipAlikA |
klIMkArI kAmarUpiNyai bIjarUpe namo.astu te || 6
chAmuNDA chaNDghAtI cha yaikArI vara-dAyinI |
vichche no.abhayadA nityaM namaste mantra-rUpiNi || 7
dhAM dhIM dhUM dhUrjaTeH patnI vAM vIM vUM vAgIshvarI tathA |
krAM krIM krUM kubjikA devi shrAM shrIM shrUM me shubhaM kuru ||8
hUM hUM hUMkAra-rUpiNyai jrAM jrIM jrUM bhAlanAdinI |
bhrAM bhrIM bhrUM bhairavI bhadre bhavAnyai te namo namaH || 9
pAM pIM pUM pArvatI pUrNA khAM khIM khUM khecharI tathA |
mlAM mlIM mlUM mUlavistIrNA kubjikAyai namo namaH || 10

This kubjikA mantra-mAlA has close resemblance to the siddha-kun~njikA stotra (SKS) which is used with the mArkaNDeya saptashatI and belongs to the vana-durgA tradition. The SKS exists in two recensions which are respectively supposed to have come from the gaurI-tantra (like the above stotra) and the DAmara tantra. On the face of it both the kubjikA mantra mAlA and the two versions of the SKS have a stotra section that clearly describes chaNDikA of the mArkaNDeya puraNa. In the case of the SKS from the gaurI tantra the mantra-s at the beginning of the stotra are from the chaNDikA tradition based on the navAkSharI vidyA (aiM hrIM klIM chAMuNDAyai vicche ||). Hence, it would seem that the southern kubjikA tradition at some point “recycled” and incorporated this text from the vana-durgA tradition. The SKS’s association with the saptashatI appears to have also resulted in the votaries believing that the kubjikA mantra mAlA is used before the saptashatI just as the ku~njikA text.

There have been some interesting developments in the field of crocodile evolution since the note alluded to above. Firstly, we had a note describing the unusual notosuchian, Pakasuchus (not from the terrorist state but Tanzania) with a remarkably mammalian dentition. It raises many interesting questions which we might look into at some later point. Then we had the description of two thalattosuchians of the metriorhynchoid clade, namely Torvoneustes and Neptunidraco. The former is a reasonably well-preserved fossil that was previously considered a species of Metriorhynchus, Dakosaurus and Geosaurus before being given a well-deserved generic name of its own (Andrade et al). Neptunidraco was the name given (Cau and Fanti) to a fossil known since the 1950s as a species of Metriorhynchus or Geosaurus. While it is preserved in a rather bizarre fashion – i.e. as slabs of polished stone that section through the embedded skull and neck vertebra, it represents one of the earliest members of the geosaurine clade (the Bajocian age of the Jurassic ~167-171 Mya). It is the thalattosuchians which we shall further discuss here.

Before we get to them we shall revisit the discussion by Prasad and de Broin on the teeth of crocodiles. They define the following sometimes subtly different types objectively:
1) Ziphodont: These are serrated teeth with clearly distinct denticles on the carinae or keels of the tooth. These denticles start separate elements right from within the edge of the body of the tooth crown and have a distinct enamel edge for each. The ziphodont teeth are further distinguished by Andrade et al into 1.1) microziphodont teeth which have microscopic denticles less than .3 mm in size and 1.2) macroziphodont teeth which have denticles greater than .3 mm in size. In functional terms these denticles have been proposed to aid grip of flesh and improved mechanical efficiency of slicing (which is why even knives have them) by propagating the force to crack hard substrates.

2) False-ziphodont: These teeth do not have distinct denticles that come off the body of the tooth crown. However, they do have distinct keels which bear serrations on the enamel part alone. Unlike true denticles, these serrations do not continue into the body of the tooth, which instead show anastomosing ridges. The exact functional capabilities of false-ziphodont teeth vis-a-vis true ziphodont teeth is unclear.

3) The non-ziphodont teeth: There are of many types, but among carnivores are typically triangular or conical with no keels. Thus, they are piercing rather than cutting structures.

Now ziphodont teeth are widely distributed across the crocodile clade: They are present in the non-crocodylomorph crurotarsans like Batrachotomus and phytosaurs, the sebecid clade of notosuchians, certain notosuchians like Araripesuchus, Armadillosuchus and Sphagesaurus, basal crocodiles of the sphenosuchian grade, peirosaurids and among the pristichampsids and mekosuchines in the eusuchian clade. Outside of the crocodile-line it is seen in the stem archosaurs like Erythrosuchus and the dinosaur-line. This suggests that it could have been an ancestral developmental program that could be repeatedly re-activated even if it were temporarily subsumed in certain lineages. The metriorhynchoid clade offers a good opportunity to evaluate this phenomenon of differential expression of ziphodonty over a crocodile monophyletic clade.

Metriorhynchoid crocodiles are among the most modified members of the entire crocodile-line and are more intricately adapted to a marine lifestyle than any other clade of crocodiles including the dyrosaurs and the gharials. They were perhaps the most aquatically adapted of all archosaurs including the avian dinosaurs like Hesperornis and the penguins. While the basal members of the thalattosuchian clade had incipient marine adaptations, the metriorhychoids appear to have acquired several additional features that made them “fish-crocodiles”. Importantly, they acquired hydrofoil forelimbs, a tail-fin, salt glands to excrete out salt and probably even an ocular sclerotic ring to aid better deep-sea vision. There are some indications from their wide pelvic girdle aperture that they likely had acquired live birth, thereby completely freeing them from the land.

Reconstruction by Bogdanov from Andrade et al

The studies by Andrade et al indicated that at the base of the metriorhynchoid radiation there are two stem forms, Teleidosaurus and Eoneustes, both of which have narrow snouts with piercing teeth that together appear to be best suited for piscivory. The crown is comprised of two radiations, namely the metriorhynchids and the geosaurids. The former are characterized by an elongated narrow snout comparable to the stem forms and piercing non-ziphodont dentition. Their upper jaws are also strongest at the anterior ends and this is likely to be an adaptation to hold on to struggling prey like fishes. The metriorhynchoid radiation is characterized by the genera: Metriorhynchus, Gracilineustes, Cricosaurus and Racheosaurus. Of these forms like Metriorhynchus palpebrosus has a somewhat wider snout than Gracilineustes acutus and might have had some differences in their prey. The geosaurid radiation is contrasted from the metriorhynchid radiation by the presence of broader snouts with ziphodont or false ziphodont teeth. This trend is already noticeable in the more basal members of this clade, Suchodus and Purannisaurus. However, Torvoneustes and Neptunidraco have somewhat more slender and narrow snouts. Their sister group Geosaurus and Dakosaurus have progressive broader and stronger snouts clearly indicative to taking on larger prey. The trend “culminates” in a Dakosaurus species from South America that has a particular tall snout which is particularly strongly engineered in terms of its ability to take stress.

Now, in phylogenetic terms using the information from both Torvoneustes and Neptunidraco its appears that they are both stem geosaurines – while Torvoneustes has false ziphodont teeth it is not clear what kind of teeth Neptunidraco has. Throughout the thalattosuchian clade the only crocodiles with ziphodont teeth Geosaurus and Dakosaurus, suggesting that at least within this clade this morphology emerged late. Given the basality of both Torvoneustes and Neptunidraco it would be best to interpret the emergence of ziphodonty, in the crown clade uniting the two Geosaurus and Dakosaurus, as a single event, followed by specialization into micro- and macro- ziphodont forms concomitant with the ecological diversification of the latter two taxa. Andrade et al point out that Dakosaurus and Geosaurus were among the largest of the metrirhynchoids (>4m in length) and they co-occurred in the Jurassic ecosystems of the late Kimmeridgian and Tithonian ages. Given their broad, shortened, deep snouts it is clear that both specialized in hypercarnivory. However, the differentiation of their ziphodonty and ecological overlap suggests that they were partitioned into niches related to slicing flesh of softer prey (Geosaurus; microziphodonty) and shattering bone and shell of harder prey such as, basal thalattosuchians, turtles and cephalopod mollusks (Dakosaurus; macroziphodonty).

The role of the false ziphodont dentition is more enigmatic: It appears twice in the evolution of the thalattosuchians, once in the teleosaurid Machimosaurus and in Torvoneustes. While these two forms are far apart in the thalattosuchian tree, they share some features in common: Torvoneustes is large, whereas Machimosaurus is gigantic (up t0 9 meters, with a 1.5 meter skull) suggesting that they very likely to be capable of handling large prey. They overlapped temporally with the other large marine crocodiles, with Machimosaurus from the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian and Torvoneustes from the Kimmeridgian. But both forms had somewhat shorter and blunter teeth than the crown geosaurines. While Andrade et al speculate that Torvoneustes’ false ziphodonty is a convergent adaptation to the true ziphodonty of the crown geosaurines, we think it is otherwise. It is quite plausible that the false ziphodonty was related to a distinct type of prey specialization that is as yet poorly understood. Machimosaurus bite marks have been seen extensively on turtles and Krebs and Buffetaut have proposed that it might have specialized in feeding on turtles.The basal thalattosuchians, like Teleosaurus, were generally long-snouted, but from the work of Pierce et al we might infer that of them Machimosaurus had the most robustly built snout. This feature taken together with the somewhat blunt teeth (a feature shared with Torvoneustes) suggests that such forms might have specialized in crushing prey. Further studies need to be performed to investigate if this mode of feeding might have a relationship with false ziphodonty.

Given that we have noted above that ziphodonty could be the ancestral condition for archosaurs, it is likely that the developmental network for it was never lost. We speculate that with the with emergence of an aquatic habit in the thalattosuchians the initial adaptation was for piscivory, which resulted in suppression of the ziphodont mode of tooth development in favor of the conical teeth. The pathway for denticle formation is likely to be related to the ectodysplasin, Shh, Wnt10b, Bmp4, Fgf4 network. Hence, we speculate that ziphodont<->non-ziphodont transformations could occur simply as a consequence of the different levels of expression of ectodysplasin and its receptor Edar along with concomitant shifts in Shh expression, much like in the scale<->feather transformations in the dinosaur-line. So a return of the expression levels to the old state could result in a return of ziphodonty when ever it is under positive selection. Under such a model the re-emergence of ziphodonty is relatively simple atavistic reversal, rather than repeated convergence to this morphology. Indeed this better explains the frequency with which it repeatedly occurs throughout archosaurian evolution. In light of this we wonder why false ziphodonty should occasionally emerge instead of true ziphodonty? It is possible that in certain lineage the developmental network for ziphodonty was lost altogether, so they are forced to convergently evolve a similar morphology, resulting in pseudoziphodonty. This appears less likely to me because it is unlikely the key developmental signal genes are lost, and difference between the ziphodont and non-ziphodont morphologies is merely one of levels of expression arising from changes to their regulatory elements. If this were indeed the case then we have all the more reason that pseudoziphodonty is a distinct adaption for a particular feeding/predatory mechanism.

The memories of the Hindu response to the turuShka depredation of our land (captured by the upavIra at vijayanagara). Note the camels and the musket-wielding infantry.

stomaM=a chant (accusative singular); vaH= personal pronoun; adya= today (adverb); rudrAya= rudra (dative singular); shikvase= skilled-one (*ArSha* dative singular); kShayadvIrAya= lord of heroes (dative singular); namasA (instrumental singular); didiShTana= to present; yebhiH= pronoun plural; shivaH= shiva, i.e. auspicious (nominative singular) svavAn= good protector (nominative singular); evayAvabhiH=swift-moving (instrumental plural); divaH= sky (ablative singular of dyaus); siShakti= accompanied by; svayashA= evidently famous (nominative singular); nikAmabhiH= eager ones (instrumental plural).
Present your chant today that pays obeisance to the rudra, the skillful one, the lord of heroes;
shiva, the good protector, of great fame, comes from the sky accompanied by those one who are swift and eager.
Who are the swift and eager ones? They are the horses yoked to the chariot that bears rudra to the ritual where the chant is being recited. An alternative, although to me less likely, interpretation is that they are the marut-s who are accompanying rudra. The only element in support of this the term evaya which sometimes might be used for marut-s.

Some words of note:
kShayadvIra – this term is commonly used for rudra. The great Vijayanagaran commentator sAyaNa notes that kShayeNa means aishvaryeNa. Some have interpreted kShayadvIra as destroyer of heroes. This does not seem to be appropriate especially when the epithet is used for puShaN or even indra. But sAyaNa is evidently correct because this kShaya is the Indo-Aryan cognate of the Iranian khShay – the root meaning to rule. This is attested in the Avestan and later khShAyathiya for lord or king (also related to kShatra).
shikvas- The declension of this word in dative singular as shikvase is the point of interest. In classical saMskR^ita, the masculine noun of the form shikvas would tend to decline in dative as shikuShe. However, the vaidika shikvas declines as shikvase following the same formula as its twin noun in the shruti, shikvan, which declines in dative as shikvane. My interlocutors in bhArata called this declension of shikvas as an element of the ArSha language. Of course it was a regular for the declension of such nouns in the Vedic layer, though they seem to have been replaced by the -van suffixes in the later layers of the language. The -vas/van suffix twins are similarly seen in other cases in the veda: R^ibhvan/R^ibhvas which also means skilled and the somewhat similar case of dhanuSh/dhanvan. Thus, if a -vas suffix masculine noun is encountered in the veda it will decline similarly to the van suffix twin but retaining the ‘s’ in place of ‘n’.

A common misconception among the unerudite is that the name shiva is not applied to rudra in the shruti. The above is one instance showing that to be wrong.

kumbha-sthalI rakShatu vo vikIrNa
sindUra-reNur dviradAnanasya
prashAntaye vighna-tamash-ChaTAnAM
niShThyUta-bAlAtapa-pallaveva ||