A Lovestory Like No Other

About 20 years ago, most people in India had not even heard, of of a thing called Valentines day.However, today I see advertisements everywhere, ranging from chocolates, diamonds, restaurants to kitchen appliances, computers.. you name it. Each one of them, asking us to celebrate the day of love, by gifting something to someone special. Personally, I find it a very commercial and materialistic way of expressing love. An intense love-story from medieval India, tell us what true love is.

Prithviraj Chauhan, was the last independent Hindu king, before Hemu, to sit upon the throne of Delhi. He succeeded to the throne in 1179 CE at the age of 13, and ruled from the twin capitals of Ajmer and Delhi. Prithviraj Chauhan is a legend, known for his bravery, courage and proficient military skills and also his chivalry. Prithviraj had annexed vast regions of India to his kingdom, and his fame had spread all across the subcontinent and to Afghanistan. He was called as the Samraat,which means emperor.

Sanyukta, was the daughter of Raja Jaichand of Kannauj.She was known to be  breathtakingly beautiful.But she also a headstrong girl.She fell in love with Prithviraj as his reputation dazzled her. She desired nobody but him. Prithviraj had heard of Samyukta's beauty and seen her in a painting. He fell in love with her as well.

However, both belonged to rival Rajput clans !

On finding out about the affair, Raja Jaichand was outraged.He decided to insult Prithviraj and arranged a Swayamvara for his daughter. He invited royalty from far and wide to the ceremony, every eligible prince and king except Prithviraj.He then commissioned a clay statue of Prithviraj, which served as doorman (dwarpala) to Jaichand's court. Prithviraj, on hearing about the impending swayamvar, made a plan. On the day of the ceremony, Samyukta walked through the court holding the ceremonial garland, ignoring the gazes of her ardent suitors. She passed through the door and put the garland around the neck of Prithviraj's statue, declaring him her husband. Prithiviraj, who meanwhile was hiding behind the statue, caught Samyukta up in his arms, set her on his horse, and whisked her away to Delhi.

After a few years, Mohammad Ghori, the cruel ruler from Afganisthan, attacked the fortress of Bhatinda in East Punjab, which was on the frontier of Prithiviraj's kingdom. Ghori had a huge army. Prithviraj appealed to Kannauj for help, but was rejected. Undaunted, the brave warrior king of Delhi marched on to Bhatinda and met his enemy at Tarain.Prithiviraj won the battle there, and Mohammad Ghori was made his prisoner.Gohri begged for mercy. Prithviraj, who was renowned for his sense of honor and chivalry, respectfully released Ghori against the advice of his ministers.

Ghori rode to Afghanistan, and then returned to India with a stronger army. He have an ultimatem to Prithviraj to convert to Islam.When Prithviraj refused,Gohri attacked. Again, Kannauj did not come to Prithviraj's aid. In the second battle of Tarain,Prithviraj Chauhan lost and was taken to Afghanistan as a prisoner. Where he was tortured and blinded by Ghori. Maharani Samyukta, along with her ladies, committed Jauhar and ended their lives instead of surrendering the Afghan invader.

Prithviraj Raso, a folkloric poem written by Chand Bardai, says that the death of Ghor was caused by Prithviraj with the help of Chadravardai and that afterwards they both killed  each other. Even today Afghans vent their anger by stamping on the grave of Prithiraj Chauhan because he had killed Ghori.

The love-story of Prithviraj and Samyukta is one of India's most popular romantic tales, being told from generation to generation, for its bravery, valor, passion, sacrifice, courage, selfless and undying love. Something that is rare these days !

The Ancient Alchemist

Nagarjuna was born at Fort Daihak near the famous shrine of Somnath in Gujarat in 931 A.D. He was a chemist, or an alchemist, as his efforts had been concentrated on transforming the base metals into gold. He had acquired such a reputation, due to his activities, that the people believed that Nagarjuna was in communion with gods and goddesses who had blessed him with the power of changing base metals into gold and the extracting of 'elixir of life'.

Nagarjuna himself believed in the idea of his being looked upon as blessed by the gods. He added to this belief by writing his treatise, Rasaratnakara in the form of a dialogue between him and the gods. The treatise dealt with the preparation of rasa (liquids, mainly mercury). Nagarjuna has discussed various combinations of liquids in this volume. His treatise, the Rasaratnakara also gave a survey of the status of metallurgy and alchemy as it existed in India in those days.

Methods for the extraction of metals like gold, silver, tin and copper from their ores and their purification were also mentioned, in Rasaratnakara. In his attempt to prepare the 'elixir of life' from mercury, Nagarjuna made use of animal and vegetable products, apart from minerals and alkalis. For the dissolution of diamonds, metals and pearls, he suggested the use of vegetable acids like sour gruel and juices of fruits and bark.

In his treatise, he has also listed the apparatus that was used by earlier alchemists. The process of distillation, liquefaction, sublimation and roasting were also mentioned. Nagarjuna also discussed, in detail, the possibility of transmutation of base metals into gold. But although he could not produce gold, these techniques did yield metals with gold like yellowish brilliance. Till today these methods are being used to manufacture imitation jewelry.

Nagarjuna has also discussed methods for the preparation of mercury like calamine. Later Nagarjuna seems to have turned towards organic chemistry and medicine. He has written a text called Uttaratantra which is supposed to be a supplement to an earlier text the Shusruta Samahita which is written by Shusruta in the 8th century B.C.

Nagarjuna's Uttaratantra deals mainly with the preparation of medicinal drugs. He also wrote four Ayurvedic treatises named Arogyamanjari Kakshaputatantra, Yogasara and Yogasatak.

Thus Nagarjuna seems to have been a copious writer. As he lived in the 10th century his works incorporate the ideas of earlier chemists and physicians. Only a few decades after Nagarjuna, India was invaded by the Mohammedans: Mahmud of Ghazni had raided and plundered Nagarjuna's hometown of Somnath in 1020 A.D. It is possible that Nagarjuna's texts fell into the hands of the invaders.

While the invaders ruthlessly destroyed the architectural achievements of this country and imposed their despotic rule, they also transmitted Indian sciences to the outside world.

Along with Mahmud of Ghazni came scholars like Al Beruni who studied Indian texts and translated them into Arabic. Many Indian ideas of medicine were incorporated into the Unani system of medicine of the Arabs. Nagarjuna's works could not have escaped their attention. It is possible that the technique of alchemy was borrowed by the Arabs from India. In the ancient world there is no reference to alchemy. We first hear of it in the medieval Europe. The homeland of the Arabs is not rich in metals, thus alchemy and the smelting of metals could not have been indigenous to the Arabs.

Thus the Arabs seem to have borrowed the technique of transforming base metals info gold-like metals from India. The Arabs called the technique Al Kimia which according to the Oxford Dictionary literally means the 'transformation of metals'. Al means 'The' and Khimia which is derived from the Greek term Khemia means 'to transmute metals'.

But westerners did not appear to have had the knowledge of the technique of alchemy. This is borne out by the fact that the term Alchemy which the westerners use for describing this technique was borrowed from the Arabs. The word Alchemy is obviously a corruption of the term Al Kimia which the Arabs gave to the technique of converting base metals into gold like substances which they culled out from Indian texts on the subject.

I wish the people of India would realize, that the texts from ancient India are much much more valuable than their weight in gold !

Food Wise

My Grandmother always had a lot of dos and donts for our dietary habits. She would say -  " you just ate that, you cannot eat this immediately after ".I would get annoyed and ask her why ? She couldn't really explain the reason behind it, but she always said it with so much conviction, that I always complied. I think people from the previous generations were very food wise. They had a deep understanding of the effects different foods have on our body. As a grown up, I decided to study the science behind it all. The concept of incompatible food combinations in Ayurveda (called virudh aahar) took a while for me to grasp and understand .And I am still trying to incorporate it into my own diet.

Foods may be incompatible because they create a negative reaction in the body, generate additional water in the body that can lead to skin conditions, block the body’s channels, contribute to heart disease or simply lead to indigestion. And certain foods may be incompatible because they are simply not right for a particular season. So eating  chilies in the summer is not recommended as the added heat will lead to rashes, cold sores, acne, and heartburn. Incompatible foods lead to a lot of different types of allergies, which are largely in-explainable by modern medicine. Every food has its own taste, a heating or cooling energy and post-digestive effect. When two or three different food substances of different taste, energy and post-digestive effect are combined together our digestive tract can become overloaded, inhibiting the enzyme system and resulting in production of toxins in the system.

Here are a few examples of foods that dont go togather, most of us have heard it from our elders but we just didnt know why :

1) Milk and Fruits : milk and melons (or any fruit for that matter) are not to be consumed together because milk is a laxative and melon a diuretic. Also, the fruit is digested very quickly and milk takes longer for the body to process. During that processing time, the fruit curdles the milk potentially creating a sour stomach and lots of acidity.

2) Milk proien and meat protien : Milk should not be eaten with fish as the two foods are incompatible: milk is cold and fish is heating. Combining the two vitiates the blood and causes obstruction of the body’s channels. Salt and milk together is another combination that should be avoided due to antagonistic qualities in the two.

3) Milk and Bananas : Banana should not be eaten with milk, curds, or buttermilk because the combination can diminish digestion and produce toxins in the body. Eating this combination can lead to cold, cough, and allergies.

4) Honey : Always use raw, uncooked honey. Baking with honey or heating it in general turns it into a sticky glue that clogs the body’s channels and produces toxins. This includes having honey in your tea or drinking something hot after eating honey.

I cringe, at the sight of kids eating non-veg burgers with milk shakes in fast food joints. And I feel like telling at the parents " you cannot let them eat that ". But I get a hold of myself and hope that the food wisdom of our ancestors will dawn upon us someday !

The ancient diplomat

I was watching an interview recently, where Mr Arnab Goswami was constantly accusing Ms Kiran Bedi of being diplomatic. He made it sound like being diplomatic is somehow a bad thing. Something that one mustn't indulge in.

I'd like to ask Mr Goswami, do you know that Chanakya, the great thinker and was also a great diplomat of ancient India ? He was one of the earliest people who envisaged the united India spanning the entire subcontinent ! The diplomatic enclave in New Delhi is named Chanakyapuri in his honour.

So who was Chanakya ? And why is he remembered so often, even today ?

Chanakya was born in a Bhramin household in c370 BC. When Chanakya was born, he had a full set of teeth, during those days, it was considered a sign that he would become a king or an emperor. But since he was born in a Brahmin family, it was considered inappropriate. Thus, his teeth were broken and it was predicted that he would make another person a king and rule through him.Even as a child, Chanakya had the qualities of a born leader. His knowledge was beyond children of his age. He studied in Takshashila,an ancient centre of learning. Later, he became a professor of economics and political science at the same University. After acquiring vast knowledge in various branches of study he wanted everybody to get benefited. He believed in the broadcasting of knowledge and not in the storage of it. So famous was Chanakya in the vicinity of the university that he had many names. He was called Vishnugupta,Kautilya and Chanakya. The whole nation was bewildered by the cleverness and wit of this seemingly small boy who went on to single handedly unify the country with the sheer power of his character. He lived his life working to his capacity in pursuit of his vision of a happy strong and prosperous India.

The Europian invader Salukes, was readying his army to attach the republics of India and at the same time,the ruler of Patliputra, Mahanand was squeezing the common man of his wealth with an object of enriching his own exchequer. Chanakya was aware of the internal and external threats of the country.He envisioned his country clutched in the chains of slavery and defeated because of internal squabbles and differences. So he decided on the historical day, thus saying,

"Now the time has come to leave the university. The scrupulous rulers of the country must be uprooted and there is a need to strengthen the country politically and economically. My first and foremost duty is to save the country of the foreign invaders and salvage this dangerous proposition."

With these thoughts in mind, he left Taxila University for Patliputra which paved the way for watershed changes in the politics of India and Patliputra. Dhanananda, the ruler of Patliputra was unscrupulous and cruel by nature. He was always busy gathering money without thinking about consequences. He was always dissatisfied with the amount of money he had. Collecting taxes exorbitantly, he was a villain in the public eye.He also insulted Chanakya, and as revenge, Chanakya voved to dethrone him and distroy the Nanda kingdom.

Chanakya began to persuade his disciple Chandragupta of the need to build an empire that could protect Indian territories from foreign invasion.Chanakya had trained and guided Chandragupta and together they planned the destruction of Dhana Nanda. It is noted in the Chandraguptakatha that Chandragupta and Chanakya were initially rebuffed by the Nanda forces. Regardless, in the ensuing war, Chandragupta faced off against Bhadrasala, the commander of Dhana Nanda's armies. He was eventually able to defeat Bhadrasala and Dhana Nanda in a series of battles, culminating in the siege of the capital city Pataliputra and the conquest of the Nanda Empire around 321 BCE,thus founding the powerful Maurya Empire in Northern India by the time he was about 20 years old.

Chadragupta Maurya, along with Chanakya, rapidly expanded his power westwards across central and western India, taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers in the wake of the withdrawal westward by Alexander the Great's Hellenic armies. By 316 BCE the empire had fully occupied Northwestern India, defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander.Chandragupta then defeated the invasion led by Seleucus I, a Macedonian general from Alexander's army, gaining additional territory west of the Indus River.

The Maurya Empire was one of the world's largest empires in its time, and the largest ever in the Indian subcontinent. At its greatest extent, the empire stretched to the north along the natural boundaries of the Himalayas, to the east into Assam, to the west into Balochistan (south west Pakistan and south east Iran) and the Hindu Kush mountains of what is now Afghanistan.[5] The Empire was expanded into India's central and southern regions by the emperors Chandragupta and Bindusara, but it excluded a small portion of unexplored tribal and forested regions near Kalinga (modern Odisha), until it was conquered by Ashoka.

Under Chandragupta and his successors, internal and external trade, agriculture and economic activities, all thrived and expanded across India thanks to the creation of a single and efficient system of finance, administration, and security. Mauryan India also enjoyed an era of social harmony, religious transformation, and expansion of the sciences and of knowledge.As Chanakya was the chief advisor to Chandragupta Maurya and his son Bindusara, a large part of the success is credit to him.

Chanakya authored two books - Arthasashtra and Chanakya Neeti. The Arthashastra is a treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy, written in Sanskrit.The text was influential until the 12th century, when it disappeared. It was rediscovered in 1904. The Arthashastra sets out, with dispassionate clarity, a vision of how to establish and guard a state while neutralizing, subverting, and (when opportune conditions have been established) conquering its neighbors. The Arthashastra encompasses a world of practical statecraft, not philosophical disputation. For Kautilya, power was the dominant reality. It was multidimensional, and its factors were interdependent. All elements in a given situation were relevant, calculable, and amenable to manipulation toward a leader’s strategic aims. Geography, finance, military strength, diplomacy, espionage,law, agriculture, cultural traditions, morale and popular opinion, rumors and legends, and men’s vices and weaknesses needed to be shaped as a unit by a wise king to strengthen and expand his realm.

In October 2012, about two thousand years after its composition, India's National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon praised Arthashastra for its clear and precise rules which apply even today. Furthermore, he recommended reading of the book for broadening the vision on strategic issues.This is the wisdom of the ancient Indians !

Lets Look Back

A lot of times, people ask me, why do you bring up the past all the time ? What is the point of dwelling in the bygones ? Ancient India was great, but what about us now ? Why don't we focus on our present problems instead of obsessing about its past or lost glory.

Life unfolds in the presents and I completely believe in living in the moment.But I also think history is important. Ancient cultures devoted much time and effort to teaching their children family history. It was thought that the past helps a child understand who he is. Modern society, however, has turned its back on the past. We live in a time of rapid change, a time of progress. We prefer to define ourselves in terms of where we are going, not where we come from. Our ancestors hold no importance for us. They lived in times so different from our own that they are incapable of shedding light on our experience. Man is so much smarter now than he was even ten years ago that anything from the past is outdated and irrelevant to us. Therefore the past, even the relatively recent past, is, in the minds of most of us, enshrouded by mists and only very vaguely perceived. Our ignorance of the past is not the result of a lack of information, but of indifference. We do not believe that history matters.

But history does matter. It has been said that he who understands the past, controls the future. Our view of history shapes the way we view the present, and therefore it dictates what answers we offer for existing problems. History is important because it helps us figure out who we really are, understand - where did we go wrong ? And gives us a chance to learn from our mistakes.History is important because it helps us to understand the present. If we will listen to what history has to say, we can come to a sound understanding of the past that will tell us much about the problems we now face.

Our history books in school usually start from Ashoka - The great, the decline of the Hindu kings, the rise of the Mughals and it ends with India's independence from the British. And we all are pretty much aware about the last 60 years. It always made me wonder, so who exatly are we, as a nation.Are we this dirty, corrupt nation, which is incaple of fulfilling even the basic necessities of a vast majority of its people. Where people stuggle to get a meal, live in unhygrnic, inhuman conditions and cannot lead a life of dignity. Or are we these slaves, where our wealth was looted, temples were destroyed, women were violated and everything that mattered, is taken away from us. This is not who we really are.

When the Europeans came to India, they were divided between religion and science.The pre-scientific Europeans accepted whatever the priests preached on the pulpit. The post-scientific European demanded evidence for everything. However, both rejected our scared texts and history as myths and termed it mythology. The former did it for religious reasons: truth only comes from the Bible. The latter for scientific reasons: lack of measurable evidence. In the 17th century, for example, an Irish Archbishop called James Ussher, based on literal reading of the Bible concluded the world began on October 23, Sunday, 4004 BC.So naturally, the idea that there were people roaming around the world and painting on cave walls at least 10,000 years earlier did not go down well with the religious-minded.

It must be remembered that the formal system of education that we have today was started by the British.Infact it is they who have written our history. Until the Edicts of Emperor Ashoka were discovered, he was also just a part of Buddist mythology ! Till date Ramayan and Mahabharat are not a part of our history. We are victims of a colonial hangover. We are still trying to defend and apologize to our former masters. Even today Indians bear the burden of making Ramayan and Mahabharata historical and scientific. We still feel we are answerable to the West. We have to ‘prove’ the existence of Ram and Krishna in scientific terms in order to justify our faith.

Our history books do not tell us the complete history. They tell us about the prevelant untouchability, caste system etc in our society. But have we always been like this ? No ! The word 'Varna' literally means group in Sanskrit. The ancient Indian society was divided into four sections-Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra. The reference to the Varna System can be traced back to the religious texts of the land. In Mahabharata (Anusasana Parva, Chapter 163)it is said: "O Devi, if even a sudra is actually engaged in the occupation and pure behavior of a brahmana, he becomes a brahmana. Moreover, a Vaishya can become a Kshatriya. Therefore, neither the source of one's birth, nor his reformation, nor his education is the criterion of a brahmana.The vritti, or occupation, is the real standard by which one is known as a brahmana." Every individual had the freedom to choose his occupation and hence his 'Varna' or group, just like it is all modern societies of the world. Its very important to refect upon the vedic times to understand what the true essence of our civilization is and how we have corrupted it over a period of time.

We belong to the great Bharatvash also called as Aryavart.It is time, each one of takes a keen interest in our history, understand it and define it in our terms. We have to write our own history, because it is this history which will shape our nation and its future !