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- Looking back at the goroga attacks and forward at geopolitical developments
- Khitans and Mongols: A story of deep and persistent connections-1
- The rise of the psychopath oligarchy
- The rise of yajña and Kauśika exceptionalism
- Tricakra
- Yantrasiddhi
- The dreadful apport
- Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
- The zombie obeys: a note on host manipulation by parasites and its ecological consequences
- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
- Some notes on the runiform “Altaic” inscriptions and the early Turk Khaghanates: Orkhon and beyond
- Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
- Alkaios’ hymn to the Dioskouroi: Hindu parallels
- Some notes on the Indo-European aspects of the Anatolian tradition
- The death of Miss Lizzie Willink
- Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae
- Geopolitical summary: March 2022
- Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
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mAnasa-taraMgiNI supplement
Tweets by blog_supplementTop Posts
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Recent Posts
- Looking back at the goroga attacks and forward at geopolitical developments
- Khitans and Mongols: A story of deep and persistent connections-1
- The rise of the psychopath oligarchy
- The rise of yajña and Kauśika exceptionalism
- Tricakra
- Yantrasiddhi
- The dreadful apport
- Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
- The zombie obeys: a note on host manipulation by parasites and its ecological consequences
- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
- Some notes on the runiform “Altaic” inscriptions and the early Turk Khaghanates: Orkhon and beyond
- Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
- Alkaios’ hymn to the Dioskouroi: Hindu parallels
- Some notes on the Indo-European aspects of the Anatolian tradition
- The death of Miss Lizzie Willink
- Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae
- Geopolitical summary: March 2022
- Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
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Category Archives: History
Khitans and Mongols: A story of deep and persistent connections-1
While the Chingizid Mongols have long been the focus of students of medieval steppe history, studies over the past 50 years have been steadily contributing to the picture that they were heirs of a previously neglected and even now underappreciated … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
Tagged Asia, Asian, Asians, Central Asia, China, Chinggis Khan, Han imperialism, Hun, Khitan, Mongol, Mongolia, Mongols, war
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The rise of yajña and Kauśika exceptionalism
The extant Vedic ritual is bifurcated into two domains the gṛhya (the household rites and rites of passage) and the śrauta (large-scale/grand rituals). First, in operational terms, they are distinguished by the use of a single fire (the aupāsana) in … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged atharva veda, atharvaveda, bhrgu, Hindu, Hindu knowledge, Hindu ritual, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iran, Iranian, Rigveda, ritual, Samaveda, soma, soma ritual, Veda, Yajurveda
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Tricakra
The Sintashta-Petrovka cultures (today Southern Urals, core Russia, and Kazakhstan) provide the first uncontested evidence for chariot technology. They are believed to have started around 2100 BCE and were followed by a widely expanding successor cultural horizon of the Andronovo. … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged Aryan, Aryan Invasion, chariot, Hindu, Hindu knowledge, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, mantra
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Yantrasiddhi
The March 23 version of ChatGPT’s attempt at drawing the flag of India. It made an error in the color specification of “NavyBlue” in the xcolor package. We corrected that in order to let it compile. Other than that, we … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life, Politics, Scientific ramblings
Tagged AGI, AI, catastrophe, ChatGPT, computation, extinction, GPT4, history, LLM, RLHF
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The dreadful apport
Vrishchika had just finished her work on the diagnosis and possible treatment plan for a pediatric neurological patient on whom she was consulted. She had inferred that the child’s condition arose from a mutation in the TANC2 gene and it … Continue reading
Posted in art, Heathen thought, History, Life
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, fake science, fake scientist, religion, Story
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Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
Recently, we received the news of a Russian spacecraft meant to bring some astronauts back to earth being hit by a meteorite. In early February we saw an obscure news item of the sighting of a meteoric fireball over Krasnoyarsk. … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged asteroids, astronomy, impact crater, meteorite, meteoroid, meteors, planets
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Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
Mathuran Nāga installations From the few centuries preceding it down to the first few centuries of the Common Era we see numerous installations of snake deities, i.e., Nāga-s, at various archaeological sites throughout northern India (most famously at the holy … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, atharvaveda, balabhadra, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, mahAbharata, mantra, mantra-sAdhana, mantra-shAstra, religion, Rigveda, Samaveda, saMkarShaNa, shiva, snake, tantra, tantra age, tantras, vaiShNava, Veda, viShNu, Yajurveda
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The turning of the yugacakra
As the wheel turns, what goes up comes down and what is down comes up, again and again. There is a symmetry to the process in the downward and the upward movements, albeit in opposite directions. The old Hindus, right … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
Tagged American, China, Geopolitics, Hindu, Hindu knowledge, India, Japan, Russia
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The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
The discovery of the archetypal eclipsing binary Algol The likes of Geminiano Montanari are hardly seen today. This remarkable Italian polymath aristocrat from the 1600s penetrated many realms of knowledge spanning law, medicine, astronomy, physics, biology and military technology. Having … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Algol, astronomy, beta Lyrae, eclipsing binary, gravity, physics, stars, variable stars, W Ursae Majoris
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Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
Our sleep was disturbed by a dream with a circulating motif whose exact story line, if any, was lost upon awakening. It started with a tall elderly man of West African ancestry playing cricket (batting) with the swagger of a … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
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Geopolitical summary: March 2022
The autumn dawn As the 40th day of the autumn of 2016 CE dawned, the mahāmleccha left-liberals were sunning themselves in the last rays of the setting Ardhakṛṣṇa. He was the hero of the age for them, a veritable yuganātha, … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Abrahamistic vandalism, American, China, Chinese belligerence, Chinese incursion, Geopolitics, Japan, mlechCha, Russia
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Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
We learnt via a recent obituary that the French researcher Luc Montagnier died a month or so ago after living for nearly 90 years. He along with his compatriot and erstwhile colleagues, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Jean-Claude Chermann discovered HIV-1. Subsequently, … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged AIDS, biography, biological conflict, biological patterns, biologists, biology, HIV, virus, viruses
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Transcripts of conversations: the addiction principle:
A friend recorded some of our verbalizations and made transcripts of them. He sent them to us to and we decide to edit them and post them as and when we get the chance — not out of a narcissistic … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Politics, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Geopolitics, history, toxins, war
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Are civilizational cycles the norm?
Nearly two and half decades back, we used to have several conversations with a late śūlapuruṣīya professor, mostly on topics with a biological angle. While not a mathematician, he had a passing interest in dynamical systems, for he felt that … Continue reading
On the rise of the mātṛkā-s and the goddess Cāmuṇḍā
The roots of the mātṛkā-s in the śruti and the Kaumāra tradition The standard list of 7/8 goddesses known as the mātṛkā-s is a hallmark feature of the classical religion: Brāhmī, Māheśvarī, Kaumārī, Vaiṣṇavī, Vārāhī, Indrāṇī, Cāmuṇḍā, sometimes with the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged bhairava, bhairava temple, erotic, evolution of religions, goddesses, gods, Hindu, Hindu ritual, kaula, kaumAra ritual, kumAra, mantra, mantra-sAdhana, mantra-shAstra, mathurA, mAtR^ikA, matsya purANa, religion, ritual, rudra, saiva, seven goddesses, shaiva, shakta, shatarudrIya, shiva, temple, twelve goddess
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Huns, Uralics, and empires of the steppe
A map by Savelyev et al. for the geographic orientation of the reader of the below article. The Huns of Europe “The lord of the Huns, King Attila, born of his father Mundzuk, lord of the bravest tribes, who with … Continue reading
Subjective and objective insight
The black American scientist Sylvester Gates mentioned a curious personal anecdote in a talk. To paraphrase him, when he was in college, he had to take a calculus course. He mentioned how he could cut through differentiation as it was … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged consciousness, DMT, first-person, ghosts, history of science, mathematics, objective, subjective
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On the passing of E.O. Wilson
E.O. Wilson, one of the great biologists of the age, has fallen to the noose of the king, the black son of Vivasvān. He lived a long, productive, and eventful life, just 8 years shy of a century. He was … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Politics, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ants, bees, biology, eusociality, history of science, hymenopterans, isopterans, social parasitism, society, sociobiology, sociology, Superorganism, Watson, Wilson
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The Rāmāyaṇa in numbers: meters, sarga- and kāṇḍa- structure
In the extant Indo-European textual corpus, only in the Hindu collection do we find two complete early epics to complement the śruti. The Iranian epics come from a much later age than the core Avestan corpus, and in the Greek … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged epics, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, kavI, kAvya, rAmAyaNa
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Sneha, snowstorms, the sun and the moon in enigmatic ṛk-s
That the Indo-European homeland was a cold place with snow is evidenced by widespread survival of two hon-homologous words for snow. Recently, a discussion on one of these words, sparked by some linguist, landed on my timeline on Twitter. From … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged astronomy, atharva veda, atharvaveda, gods, Hindu, Hindu knowledge, Hindu ritual, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, indology, linguistics, Rigveda, Sanskrit, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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The strange case of the Āpastamba sprite
This is the second of the two stories that arose from incidents during the visit of Yaśaśravas, Somakhya’s cousin. With the autumnal vacations, Somakhya was having a good time with his visiting cousin, giving him lectures on the theory and … Continue reading
Agni as the divine commander in the Veda and the Purāṇa
With the Sākamedha-parvan with the oblations to Agni Anīkavat having just passed, we present a brief note on Agni as the general of the deva army. Agni is presented as the commander of the deva-s in the brāhmaṇa literature. For … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged agni, Aryan, atharva veda, atharvaveda, brahmana, gods, harivaMsha, Hindu, Hindu ritual, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, kaumAra ritual, purAna, purANas, Rigveda, ritual, soma ritual, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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The rise of Navyonmāda, the subversion of the Mahāmleccha-s, Cīnānusāra and beyond
The past The dynamics of the establishment of the counter-religious unmāda-s are of some interest. The pūrvonmāda of pharaoh Akhenaten arose from the moha in his own head and was imposed on the populace due to his imperial power. It … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Anglosphere, Chinese belligerence, Chinese incursion, Geopolitics, Hindu, leukosphere, mlechCha, world history, World War 2
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Turagapadādi
This note stems from a recent conversation with a friend, where he pointed out that the graph representing all possible positions the horse (knight) can take on the chessboard from a given starting square produces interesting graphs. It struck us … Continue reading
Asians and Pacific Islanders: The triangle
In our youth, we read with great excitement old books on anthropology obtained from a library with considerable difficulty. The excitement was primarily from learning about the osteology of extinct apes and monkeys, including the closest sister groups of Homo … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ancient India, Aryan, Aryan Invasion, Asia, Asian, Australia, Austro-Asiatic, Austronesians, China, DNA, genetics, genomics, Japan, Korea, Papuans
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Some further notes on the old Mongol religion-2
O fire mother, whose father is flint, whose mother is pebble, whose meal is yellow feather grass, whose life is an elm tree. An incantation to the Fire Goddess Ghalun-eke; translation from the Mongolian by Yönsiyebü Rinchen This note revisits … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged bauddha, buddha, buddhism, buddhist, China, Chinese belligerence, Chinese incursion, Ching, Chinggis Khan, evolution of religions, Hindu, Khan, Mongol, Mongol religion, Mongolia, Mongols, ritual
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Some talks at the Indic Today portal
We had a chat with with C Surendranath, Contributing Editor and (in part with) Yogini Deshpande, Editor in Chief of Indic Today. It is divided into four parts: 1) https://www.indictoday.com/videos/manasataramgini-civilization-counter-religion-continuity-collapse-i/ A few clarifications for this part: 1) We do not … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Abrahamistic vandalism, ancient Hindu thought, China, Ching, Chinggis Khan, Hindu, India, Japan, religion, Russia, world history, World War 2
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Pandemic days: Vaccines and war
In American history-writing we come across various attempts to the justify the use of nuclear weapons on Japan in the closing phase of WW2. We often hear the claim that by using the nukes they avoided a large number of … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Anglosphere, China, Chinese belligerence, Chinese incursion, disease, Geopolitics, immunity, leukosphere, mlechCha, virus, viruses
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Pandemic days: Galtonism hits India
At some point last year, we stopped writing any further dispatches regarding the pandemic catastrophe from the disease because everything was playing out more or less as laid out in the earlier notes. There was the whole public drama around … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
Tagged American, China, Chinese belligerence, clash of civilizations, mlechCha
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Making an illustrated Nakṣatra-sūkta and finding the constellation for a point in the sky
The illustrated Nakṣatra-sūkta Towards the latter phase of the Vedic age, multiple traditions independently composed sūkta-s that invoked the pantheon in association with their home nakṣatra-s as part of the śrauta Nakṣatreṣṭi or related gṛhya homa-s. Of these oldest and … Continue reading
Posted in art, Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, atharva veda, atharvaveda, globular clusters, history of science, nakShatra-s, nebula, nebulae, Rigveda, stars, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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Johannes Germanus Regiomontanus and his rod
Even before we had become acquainted with the trigonometric sum and difference formulae or calculus are father had pointed to us that there was an optimal point at which one should stand to observe or photograph features on vertical structures, … Continue reading
Huntington and the clash: 21 years later
This note is part biographical and part survey of the major geopolitical abstractions that may be gleaned from the events in the past 21 years. Perhaps, there is nothing much of substance in this note but an uninformed Hindu might … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Abrahamistic vandalism, Chinese belligerence, Chinese incursion, clash of civilizations, Hindu, India, mlechCha, war
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The phantoms of the bone-pipe
As Vidrum was leafing through some recent case studies to gather the literature for his own production, he received a call from his chauffeur. He had fetched Vidrum’s new car. Vidrum went out to take a look at it. As … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life
Tagged bhairava, bhairava temple, death, ghost, ghosts, gupta, Hindu ritual, kaumAra ritual, mAtR^ikA, Rigveda, ritual, skanda, Story, upanisad, upaniShad, Veda, vedAnta
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Some notes on the Brahmayajña brāhmaṇa and Uttama-paṭala of the Atharvaṇ tradition
PDF version The Brahmayajña brāhmaṇa (1.1.29 of the Gopatha-brāhmaṇa) of the Atharvaveda provides a glimpse of the Vedic saṃhitā canon as known to the brāhmaṇa authors of the AV tradition. The Brahmayajña might be done as part of the basic … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged atharva veda, atharvaveda, brahmana, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Rigveda, Samaveda, Sanskrit, Veda, vedAnta, vedic, Yajurveda
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Yajus incantations for the worship of Rudra from the Kāṭhaka ritual manuals
This article is available as a pdf document. The notes from it are appended below. The loss of the northern and northwestern Kṛṣnayajurveda traditions due to the Mohammedan depredations of Northern India (aided an abetted by the predatory Anglospheric regimes) … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged atharva veda, atharvaveda, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Kashmir, kaTha, Rigveda, rudra, Samaveda, shatarudrIya, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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Bṛhaspati-śanaiścarayor yuddham-2020 ityādi
The below is only for information. Parts of it should not be construed as any kind of prognostication on our part. The great Hindu naturalist Varāhamihira describes various kinds of planetary conjunctions or grahayuddha-s in his Brihatsaṃhitā (chapter 17) thus: … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, constellations, geometry, Greek, Greek thought, Hindu knowledge, Hindu science, planets, sky, stars
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Ruminations on meteorites, organics and water
In our times the Christian Anglo-Saxons were famous for their “war on drugs”. However, in the 1800s, when they lorded over India, they were famous as global drug dealers. On the morning of August 25, 1865 CE around 9:00 AM, … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, Earth, geology, Life, meteorite, meteoroid, meteors, origins
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Winners and Losers
Somakhya and Lootika were visiting the Śūlapuruṣadeśa for work reasons. Unlike their ārya ancestors, they did not like being on the move much. It was a rare occasion that both had been able to travel together and it brought them … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Politics
Tagged American, China, Chinese belligerence, Chinese incursion, fiction, Germans, Germany, history, Japan, Story, war, world history
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Conic conquests: biographical and historical
PDF file of same article Studying mathematics with our father was not exactly an easy-going experience; nevertheless, it was the source of many a spark that inspired fruitful explorations and life-lessons. We recount one such thread here, and reflect on … Continue reading
Pandemic days: the fizz is out of the bottle
Just this morning our brother remarked that the fear of the virus has inverted this month with respect to the actual infection. We literally hear this: in the past few months, while home-bound, we at least had aural quietness for … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Abrahamistic vandalism, American, ape behavior, communal riots, evolution of religions, Geopolitics, mlechCha
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Notes on miscellaneous brāhmaṇa passages from the Yajurveda
The upasthāna ritual is performed to let the sacrificial fire remain in residence after the primary oblations are complete. In the triple-fire śrauta rite this is done at the āhavanīya altar with several incantations specified in the saṃhitā-s of the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged Hindu, Hindu knowledge, Hindu mathematics, Hindu ritual, religion, Rigveda, ritual, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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The culmination of Galtonism or pandemic days-1
While many thoughts crowd our mind we have hardly felt the drive to put them down on a more visible medium. Such is the nature of the times when things happen reminding you of the inexorable turning of the yuga-cakra. … Continue reading
Snatches
Vidrum had called on his friends Somakhya and Lootika on a quiet afternoon to accompany him for a climb on the trails of Vidrumavistāra that lay beyond Viṣṭhaparvata. The fierce fighting arising from a surprise ghazvat of the makkha-viṣaya-dānava-s had … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life
Tagged fiction, Hindu knowledge, history of science, knowledge production, knowledge systems, Story
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The Plague: historical, biographical and current: a brief roundup
Globalization is not a new thing. The Indo-European empire of the steppes was perhaps the first one. In addition to having a serious component of our genetic ancestry and most of our memetic inheritance in it, we can still see … Continue reading
The Aśvin-s and Rudra
The twin Aśvin-s and Rudra are both Indo-Aryan reflexes of two deity-classes which can be reconstructed as likely being present in the Proto-Indo-European religion. Both are likely to have even deeper roots going back to even earlier religious traditions across … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged archaeology, ashvins, astronomy, atharva veda, atharvaveda, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, religion, Rigveda, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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The roots of Vaiṣṇavam: a view from the numerology of Vedic texts
While glorified with a 1000 names in the famous stotra of the early Sātvata tradition of the Mahābharata, in the texts of an even earlier period the god primarily went under that name Viṣṇu. Indeed, even the litany of the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged Hindu, Hindu ritual, Hindus, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, religion, vaiShNava, viShNu
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A modern glance at Nārāyaṇa-paṇḍita’s combinatorics-1
For improved reading experience one may use the PDF version. Students of the history of Hindu mathematics are well-acquainted with Nārāyaṇa-paṇḍita’s sophisticated treatment of various aspects of combinatorics and integer sequences in his Gaṇita-kaumudī composed in 1356 CE. In that … Continue reading
Kaiṭabha, poison and death: meanderings through tradition
For better reading try PDF version The medical Suśruta-saṃhitā, kalpasthāna, chapter 3 contains an unusual mythologem about the origin of poison. It clearly belongs to the Prājāpatya tradition and presents some unusual features. It presented in full below: prajām imām … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged atharvaveda, brahmA, brahmana, death, Hindu, poison, religion, Rigveda, Samaveda, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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Pearl necklaces for Maheśvara
Śrīpati’s pearl necklace for Maheśvara The brāhmaṇa Śrīpati of the Kāśyapa clan was a soothsayer from Rohiṇīkhaṇḍa, which is in the modern Buldhana district of Maharashtra state. Somewhere between 1030 to 1050 CE he composed several works on mathematics, astronomy … Continue reading
Nārāyaṇa’s sequence, Mādhava’s series and pi
The coin-toss problem and Nārāyaṇa’s sequence If you toss a fair coin times how many of the possible result-sequences of tosses will not have a successive run of 3 or more Heads? The same can be phrased as given tosses … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged approximation for pi, coin toss, constant, Euclid, fibonacci, Geometric construction, geometry, Golden Ratio, hexagon, Hindu mathematics, history of science, mAdhava, mathematics, nArAyaNa, pentagon, pi, sequence, series sum, tribonacci
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Śiva-gaṇa-s and Andhakāsura-vadha in the Vāmana-purāṇa
On Twitter, one of our acquaintances going by the name @GhorAngirasa had a discussion on the significance of the number 66 in śaiva tradition. That reminded us of an unfinished article where we had noted this number in the context … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged Hindu, Hindu ritual, indra, pAshupata, purAna, purANas, religion, shaiva, shiva, vamAna-purANa, viShNu
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Cows, horses, sheep and goats
It goes without saying that humans are what they are today because of cows, horses, sheep and goats. Hindu civilization in particular is in the very least the product for the first two, while remaining two contributed to it from … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged cattle, climate, cows, goats, horses, India, Mongolia, Mongols, pastoralism, sheep
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Mongolica: The Tangut empire
In the early 1100s of the CE Rtsa-mi lotsawa Sangs-rgyas grags-pa was in Nālandā, India, to study and transmit the latest that the tāntrika strain of Bauddha-mata had to offer. Within a century both his world and that of his … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged Army of Islam, buddha, buddhism, buddhist, Central Asia, China, Chinese belligerence, Chinggis Khan, India, Islamic, Islamic Vandalism, Mongol religion, Mongolia, Mongols, religion, Tibet, TIbetans
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Liṅga-kāmādi-sūtrāṇi
Devanagari PDF version .. Sūtrapāṭhaḥ .. atha liṅga-kāmādi-sūtrāṇi vyākhyāsyāmaḥ . jīvasūtrāṇunām anukrameṣu parimeyā vikārā jīvā-paramparāyā+avaśyam . jantvoḥ saṃgrāmas tasya paramaṃ kāraṇam . tasmād ajāyata jīvasūtrāṇunāṃ vyūḍhīkaraṇam . RecA-nāma jīvakāryāṇu-kulaṃ jīvasūtrāṇunāṃ vyūḍhīkaraṇaṃ karoti . mukhyaśo ‘nagnijīvasūtrāṇunām . anagnijīvasūtrāṇu-mithunayor maithunāt . idam … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Ape, ape behavior, recombination, reproduction, sex, sexual conflict
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1859 CE and beyond: Some reflections
The yuga between 1800 CE and 1900 CE saw a remarkable change in our understanding of the world at many levels. It is not that some of these ideas did not exist long before that time but they came together … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged biologists, biology, entropy, evolution, gravity, physics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics
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The maṅgalācaraṇam of the Mānasollāsa
In PDF format A conversation with a friend brought my mind back to the Mānasollāsa, the encyclopedia of the great Cālukya emperor Someśvara-deva. Below is the maṅgalācaraṇam of that work. The last verse is where the author announces himself. There … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged goddesses, gods, Hindu, poem, religion, Sanskrit
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A brief overview of the last campaign of Chingiz Khan and the issue of succession in the Mongol empire
Succession is always an important issue in history. The legacy of a mighty ruler and/or founder of an empire might quickly unravel if the issue of succession is left unresolved. In Hindu history the Gupta-s were marked with glory because … Continue reading
A note on āmreḍita-s in the Ṛgveda and issues of word distribution
sa darśataśrīr atithir gṛhe-gṛhe vane-vane śiśriye takvavīr iva । janaṃ-janaṃ janyo nāti manyate viśa ā kṣeti viśyo viśaṃ-viśam ॥ RV 10.91.2 by Aruṇa Vaitahavya He, with visible auspiciousness, a guest in house after house, in forest after forest lurking like … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged grammar, Hindu, Hindu ritual, Hindus, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, linguistics, mantra, religion, Rigveda, ritual, Veda, vedic
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The amazonian banana republic: the strī-rājya in Hindu tradition
The śaiva tradition shows a dichotomy with respect to the role of the sex in ritual and purity. The earlier antimārga or pāśupata tradition focused on abstinence and the so-called “upward flow” or ūrdhvaretas. This indeed the underlying idea behind … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged amazons, gorakSha, Greek, Greek thought, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, kadalirAjya, matsyendra, natha yogin, strIrAjya
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A brief note on some new developments regarding the genomics of Indians
When we wrote a previous article on this matter we had stated that new data will alter the details of our understanding of picture discussed therein. Indeed, two new manuscripts which were deposited in the past month by McColl et … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ancient India, Aryan, Aryan Invasion, genetics, India, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian
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Mongolica: Qubilai Khan’s campaign to destroy the Southern Song
The final act in Mongol conquest of China shows the military capability of Qubilai and why his grandfather, the great Khan had singled him out as the one who someday would adorn his throne. We shall place here a very … Continue reading
Counting primes, arithmetic functions, Ramanujan and the like
We originally wished to have a tail-piece for our previous note that would describe more precisely the relationship between the Möbius function and the distribution of prime numbers. However, since that would have needed a bit of a detour in … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged complex numbers, Euler, Gauss, mathematics, prime numbers, Ramanujan, Riemann
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Mongolica: Knowledge preservation and generation, Bolad Aqa and the like
We had earlier written an essay on the preservation and production of synthetic knowledge by the Chingizid Mongols. Here we discuss a few additional points in that regard. It is clear that throughout the Chingizid clan there was a certain … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged astronomy, buddhism, China, Chinggis Khan, history of science, India, Iran, Mongol, Mongol religion, Mongolia, Mongols
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Civilizational collapse, complexity, innovation and neomania
On these pages we had provided some commentary on the work of the German thinker Oswald Spengler and his ideas of civilizational development. We had also provided other perspectives on this matter derived from analogies stemming from simple mathematical systems. … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life
Tagged civilizational collapse, collapse, complexity, neomania, Spengler, technology
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Frustrations and ramblings ensuing from Cretaceous amber
Time and again I have been frustrated by the inability of Hindus to make the most of the riches that are available in their own land or right next to them. One such case is that of Cretaceous amber from … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged amber, birds, buddhism, dinosaurs, elektron, fossil, Hindu, kavI, kAvya, poetry
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Of lives of men; of times of men-II
Of lives of men; of times of men-I Vidrum: “When we attended the discussions at the Right Wing Debate club we heard the president Rammandir Mishra repeatedly emphasize that South Asian civilization was not a ‘history-centric’ civilization and that history-centricism … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, Euler, Gauss, Hindu, Hindu knowledge, Hindu science, Hindus, history, Ramanujan, Riemann, Story, world history
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Of lives of men; of times of men-I
Sharvamanyu and Vidrum arrived at the campus where Somakhya and Lootika were in their final days of college. Sharvamanyu had already been working for several months while Vidrum had just completed the last but one of his major exams for … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Aryan, Egypt, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, religion, Story, war
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Triangles, Hexes and Cubes
One philosophical question which we have often ponder about is: Are numbers “real”? One way to approach this question is via figurate numbers, where numbers directly manifest as very tangible geometry. This idea has deep roots in our tradition: as … Continue reading
A note on tales of fratricide, warfare, cannibalism and incest
The Osman conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmet-II, bothered by the civil wars his predecessors had to fight to take the throne, institutionalized the system of fratricide. In this system, the rival brothers of the sultan, who took the throne, were all … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ants, biological warfare, biology, combat, developmental biology, evolution, fratricide, hymenopterans, males, sex-ratio, wasps
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A rambling talk on the śaiva mantra tradition
A rambling talk we had given on the śaiva tradition. Talking is easier but less precise than writing. So please be aware of the insufficiency that goes with the domain of any talk while perusing this material. Part 1; Introduction to … Continue reading
A note on the cow, the horse and the chariot in the Ṛgveda
yasmai tvaṃ sukṛte jātaveda u lokam agne kṛṇavaḥ syonam | aśvinaṃ sa putriṇaṃ vīravantaṃ gomantaṃ rayiṃ naśate svasti || For whom you will make a pleasant world, O Jātavedas! as he does correct rituals for you, O Agni! He endowed with … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged chariot, cow, holy cow, horse, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, indology, Rigveda, Veda, vedic
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Braided power: a brief note on the last great steppe power: the Mongol-Manchu system
We first read of matters pertaining to this note with some interest in books which had newly arrived at a library in our old city that we mainly visited for Sanskritic literature. We wished to summarize everything we had learned … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
Tagged Abrahamism, Abrahamistic vandalism, bauddha, buddhism, China, Chinese belligerence, Ching, Chinggis Khan, English, French, Jurchen, Manchu, Mongol, Mongol religion, Mongolia, Mongols, religion, Taiping, world history
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The Rāmāyaṇa and a para-Rāmāyaṇa in numbers-II: Evolving early Indo-Aryan warfare
This article might be read in as a continuation of this earlier one. The methods/caveats mentioned therein apply here too. Some of the counts mentioned in this article might be approximate but should be generally in the correct range, i.e. … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged archery, arrow, bow, chariot, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, rAmAyaNa, Veda, war, weapons
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Some personal reflections on Carl Gauss, Bernhard Riemann and associated matters
The biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi had famously remarked that as he successively, journeyed for a better understanding of life from cell biology, to physiology, to pharmacology, to bacteriology, to biochemistry, to physical chemistry to quantum mechanics he lost life between his … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Einstein, Euclid, Euler, Gauss, geometry, Greek thought, Non-euclidean geometry, Riemann, Thabit ibn Kurra
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A superficial look at national population density and some life history features
Over the years we have repeatedly checked out various collections of data pertaining to the human condition in the same manner as we attempted to apprehend scientific data. We have wondered whether to write on them in any detail. We … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Politics
Tagged Afghanistan, Africa, city states, India, IQ, Japan, life expectancy, population density, statistics
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Some biological analogies for certain sociopolitical issues
In Hindu society we often see certain relatively straightforward sociopolitical issues endlessly debated. A person with relatively commonplace IQ should in principle easily arrive a correct apprehension of these issues by applying correct analogy and/or logic. However, due to emotionalism … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged analogical thinking, biology, Indo-Aryan, language, relgion, Sanskrit
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Some visions of infinity from the past and our times
The great Hindu mathematician and astronomer Bhāskara-II’s work preserves a high-point of Hindu knowledge. His work contains ideas that are often seen as characterizing “modern” scientific understanding i.e. what in the west would seen as starting with Leibniz and Newton … Continue reading
Āryabhaṭa and his sine table
Everyone and his son have written about Āryabhaṭa and his sine table. Yet we too do this because sometimes the situation arises where you have to explain things clearly to a layman who might have some education but is unfamiliar … Continue reading
Early Hindu mathematics and the exploration of some second degree indeterminate equations
The following is merely a record of our exploration as a non-mathematician/non-computer scientist of a remarkable (at least to us) class of numerical relationships. An equation like can be solved to obtain specific solutions as: . However, if we have … Continue reading
The Rāmāyaṇa and a para-rāmāyaṇa in numbers-I: epic as religion
This note may be read as part of our studies on the Rāmāyaṇa and para-Rāmāyaṇa-s of which an earlier part is presented here. A study of the epic in Indo-European tradition suggests that there were two registers of the old … Continue reading
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Matters of religion: discussion on vāyavya offerings
Somakhya and Lootika had revived the private one day rite in the manner of their ancestors as had been ordained by the youthful sage Śunaḥśepa Ājigarti. They were resting at the corner of their fire-room in the interval between the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged Ape, Hanumat, Hindu ritual, indra, rAmAyaNa, religion, shastra, soma, Story, vAnara, vAyu, Veda
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Some lessons we learned from 3-color totalistic cellular automata
Cellular automata (CA) have attracted people’s attention to different degrees over the past several decades since the early work of pioneers like Ulam and von Neumann. Remarkably von Neumann played with his earliest versions of CA using a graph paper … Continue reading
The Apollonian parabola
Some say that Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga (modern Murtina in Turkey; the center of the great yavana temple of the goddess Artemis in the days of Apollonius) were the two great yavana-s who might have rivaled Karl Gauss or … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Apollonius, conic sections, conics, Geometric construction, geometry, history, mathematics, parabola
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Turning of the Turkic wheel: unmattābhisaṃdhi, battles won, battles lost and march of marūnmāda
When the Mamluqs controlled the rākṣasālaya-s of Mecca and Medina they were rather zealous about their possessions just like the modern tyrants of Saud. After the Osman sultan Mehmed II had completed an important milestone for marūnmāda with the conquest … Continue reading
An astronomical interpretation of the anaḍvān sūkta
This may be seen as a continuation of this note: Anatomy and heavens in the boomorphic universe. The anaḍvān sūkta is an enigmatic sūkta from the Atharvaveda which falls in the same class as other sūkta-s which describe a “boomorphic” … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, astronomy, Hindu, Hindu ritual, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, indra, Pleiades, prajApati, Taurus, Veda, vedic
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Food and drink at the sea-side bacchanal of the yadu-s
Sections 2.88-89 of the Harivaṃśa (Viṣṇuparvan) gives a graphic description of the bacchanal of the yadu-s at the sea-side or their celebration of the samudrotsava. It has a beautiful ring to it and gives a feel for the festive culinary … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, feasting, Hindu, India, India food, Indian liquors, Indo-Aryan, yAdava, yadu
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The giants among the lilliputs
For long, despite protestations and assertions to the contrary, people have known that men are all not born equal. There are few men who tower over the rest in one or more of the axes of distinction. For over a … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ancestors, ancient Hindu thought, Aryan, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, males, Y-chromosome
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Iamblichus, quadratures, trisections and the lacuna of the cycloid
Today Syria has been turned into a hellhole by the unmāda-traya. However, just before the irruption of the second Abrahamism which ended the late Classical world, it was home to great men like Iamblichus. Hailing from a clan of priest-chiefs, … Continue reading
Some notes on the heathen Lithuania and its demise
Clinging to the inner coast of northern Europe lies Lithuania, a nation which at best only marginally figures in the Hindu historical and geographical consciousness. Conquered twice by the Soviet “empire” it had all but ceased to exist as an … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Politics
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, Baltic, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, indra, Lithuanian, parjanya, Slavic
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unmāda-carcā
The Mohammedan scientist Al-Bīrūnī was the model Abrahamistic investigator of other cultures in whose mold even those of the modern era are cast, be they from the prathamonmāda or the dvītīyonmāda or their secular variants. He was quick to recognize … Continue reading
Posted in History, Politics
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Der singende Knochen: śūlapuruṣāṇāṃ śūletyādi
That afternoon Vidrum was returning with a bunch of other friends whom he had taken through a tough course of climbing at a hilly locale. As they neared a certain road, he, Sharvamanyu, Somakhya and Lootika bade good bye to … Continue reading
Posted in art, Heathen thought, History, Life
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, folklore, folktales, Germanic, Germans, Gonzenbach, Greek, Grimm, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, motifs, Odin, rudra, Story, Yezidi
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A note on lost Śaiva centers: consideration of examples from Magadha and Vaṅga
To be read in conjunction with this handout: Harihara in the Indosphere One of the poorly understood but immensely important facets of Hindu history is the role of the saiddhāntika Śaiva-s in the cultural unification of the Indosphere within the … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, Anti-Hindu, Army of Islam, Hindu, history, India, medieval Hindu literature, Mohammedanism, rudra, saiva, shaiva, shiva, tantra
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A note on the agrarian management in Hindavi svarājya
The great rājan, the founder of the last Hindu empire, can only be effectively compared to one figure in history, namely Chingiz Kha’khan. Both displayed the rare combination of military and administrative genius that in rarely manifest simultaneously in a … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged Abrahamism, Hindu, Maratha, marAThI, Mohammedanism, shivAjI
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The ghosts of Tulagiri
Vrishchika was taking a few days off to visit her parents’ town before proceeding with her fellowship. Lootika had nearly completed moving her lab to Somakhya’s institute. She was happy that they could finally be together for good again and … Continue reading
śūlajana-kāvya: Das Riesenspielzeug
Somakhya’s and Lootika’s families were returning from a ritual at the less-known temple of the goddess Bhuvaneśvarī. They were there to worship a mysterious yantra, which is one of the rare examples of the depiction of a curve known as … Continue reading
mAnasa-taraMgiNI 