Guest guest Posted October 13, 2004 Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 my new email is lalitha9 thanks - <vediculture> <vediculture> Thursday, October 07, 2004 10:43 AM [world-vedic] Digest Number 886 There are 5 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Yoga May Ease Cancer-Related Sleep Problems "Ashwini Kumar" <ashwini_kumarr 2. RSS Spokesman Ram Madhav @ UMass "Vrn Davan" <vaidika1008 3. Genghis Khan's Palace Discovered "vrnparker" <vrnparker 4. Medieval Surgeons Were Advanced "vrnparker" <vrnparker 5. VEDIC ARYANS IN WEST ASIA "vrnparker" <vrnparker ______________________ ______________________ Message: 1 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 09:58:39 -0400 "Ashwini Kumar" <ashwini_kumarr Yoga May Ease Cancer-Related Sleep Problems Yoga May Ease Cancer-Related Sleep Problems HOUSTON, TEXAS, May 24, 2004: A small study suggests yoga can help ease the sleep disruptions that often accompany cancer treatment. Researchers from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, studied 39 people who were either being treated for lymphoma or had finished their treatment in the past year. Half were assigned to take 7 weeks of Tibetan yoga classes, while the others were given no special intervention. At the end of the study, the patients who did yoga reported falling asleep faster, sleeping better and longer, and using fewer sleep medications than people in the other group. The results were reported in the journal Cancer (Vol. 100, No. 10: 2253-2260). "Although there's not a lot out there on sleep in cancer, the few studies there are suggest that sleep is quite disrupted in cancer patients, so to improve a patient's sleep is quite a remarkable thing to have accomplished," said lead researcher Lorenzo Cohen, PhD, director of M.D. Anderson's Integrative Medicine Program. But Cohen wasn't entirely surprised by the results. The yoga may have helped patients sleep by helping them cope with the stress caused by their illness, he said. "Patients undergo a tremendous amount of stress, both from the psychological aspects of dealing with a life-threatening illness and the side effects of treatment," said Cohen. "These types of modalities that incorporate not just physical aspects, but also spiritual and mental aspects, can be useful to help manage a lot of these issues." The stretching and poses in yoga, for instance, can help patients regain some of their physical conditioning and manage fatigue, Cohen said. The breathing and relaxation techniques can help patients deal with intrusive thoughts or fear of recurrence or death. The Tibetan type of yoga used for the study may have been especially helpful, Cohen said, because it combines all of those features: gentle exercise, focused breathing, and meditation. "All of the postures can be done sitting on a chair or on the floor," explained Cohen. "They're all very low-impact, simple movements done when a person is being mindful and working on breath control." The movements can be adapted for people with limited arm or leg mobility, he added. And unlike Hatha yoga, which is more commonly practiced in the United States, the Tibetan program used in the study included no stretching, balancing, or inverted poses that can be problematic for people with cancer. Still, Cohen said, any yoga program that incorporates this mind-body-breathing combination is likely to benefit a cancer patient. But before starting any yoga program, patients should consult their doctor first, he said. People who are having problems with balance, for instance, may want to skip some of the yoga poses that require balancing; patients with bone metastases need to be careful of weight-bearing poses, which could pose a risk of fracture. _______________ Don't just Search. Find! http://search.sympatico.msn.ca/default.aspx The new MSN Search! Check it out! ______________________ ______________________ Message: 2 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:37:09 +0000 "Vrn Davan" <vaidika1008 RSS Spokesman Ram Madhav @ UMass >Bal Ram Singh <bsingh >bsingh >Global Fight Against Terrorism: Indian Perspective by Ram Madhav >on Wednesday, October 6 at noon >Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:09:30 -0400 > >Dear Friends and Colleagues, > >The Center for Indic Studies is happy to present Mr. Ram Madhav, National >Spokesperson of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of India, world's largest >voluntary organization, albeit controversial at times. RSS represents a >representing a unique group of people, and has been a major force behind >the nationalistic activities in India. It is the parent organization of >immediate past Prime Minister of India, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, and many >in his council of ministers. > >Mr. Madhav is on a US tour giving many lectures and interviews throughout >the country. His recent lecture at Johns Hopkins University had triggered >strong protest from a few leftist groups on Indian origin in this country. > >Mr. Madhav represents a new breed of young Indian leaders, who are >increasing being assertive not only in India but also internationally. His >presentation on the Indian perspective of the Global Fight Against >Terrorism will be lively, frank, and perhaps controversial vis-a-vis US war >on terrorism. > >Your presence and participation would add to the discussion and level of >academic engagement on this very timely topic of discussion. > >Event: A presentation on Global Fight Against Terrorism: Indian Perspective > >Speaker: Mr. Ram Madhav, Spokesperson, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh >(National Volunteer Organization), India > >October 6, 2004 > >Time: 12 noon (light lunch provided at 11:45 AM) > >Place: Board of Trustees Room (Foster Administration Building) > >Please RSVP to (mjennings) by Tuesday noon, so that we can >arrange for the lunch appropriately. > >Biographical Information on Mr. Madhav is given below: >Born in Andhra Pradesh, India, Ram Madhav Varanasi is one of the top >intellectuals today in India. Primarily a student of Electrical and >Electronics Engineering, Mr. Madhav also has a post-graduate degree in >Political Science. Currently he is the spokeperson of Rashriya Swayamsevak >Sangh (R.S.S.), the largest voluntary organization of the world. Apart from >serving on editorial boards of several noted regional and national journals > >Mr. Madhav has authored more than twelve books and contributes regularly to >several Indian dailies and weeklies as a columnist. Mr. Madhav has also >served as director in several film censor boards and educational institutes >of India. > >Mr. Madhavs association with Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) goes back to >his childhood days. He formally volunteered to be fulltime worker for RSS >in 1983. Since then Mr. Madhav has been assigned to several key positions >in the organization. Since 2003 he has been serving as the national >spokesperson. > >Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D. >Director, Center for Indic Studies >University of Massachusetts Dartmouth >285 Old Westport Road >Dartmouth, MA 02747 > >Phone: 508-999-8588 >Fax: 508-999-8451 >Email: bsingh > >Internet address: http://www.umassd.edu/indic > > _______________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement ______________________ ______________________ Message: 3 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:38:13 -0000 "vrnparker" <vrnparker Genghis Khan's Palace Discovered Archeologists unearth Genghis Khan's palace http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2004/10/06/658331-ap.html By AUDREY MCAVOY TOKYO (AP) - Archeologists have unearthed the site of Genghis Khan's palace and believe the long-sought grave of the 13th-century Mongolian warrior is somewhere nearby, the head of the excavation team said Wednesday. A Japanese and Mongolian research team found the complex on a grassy steppe 240 kilometres east of the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said Shinpei Kato, professor emeritus at Tokyo's Kokugakuin University. Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) united warring tribes to become leader of the Mongols in 1206. After his death, his descendants expanded his empire until it stretched from China to Hungary. Genghis Khan built the palace in the simple shape of a square tent attached to wooden columns on the site around 1200, Kato said. The researchers found porcelain buried among the ruins dated to the warrior's era, helping identify the grounds, Kato said. A description of the scenery around the palace by a messenger from China's Southern Tang Dynasty in 1232 also matched the area, he added. Genghis Khan's tomb is believed to be nearby because ancient texts say court officials commuted from the mausoleum later built on the grounds to the burial site daily to conduct rituals for the dead. Kato said his group was not aiming specifically to find the grave. Still, he said finding it would help uncover the secrets of Genghis Khan's power. "Genghis Khan conquered Eurasia and built a massive empire. There had to have been a great deal of interaction between east and west at the time, in terms of culture and the exchange of goods," Kato said in an interview. "If we find what items were buried with him, we could write a new page for world history." Genghis Khan's grave site is one of archeology's enduring mysteries. According to legend, in order to keep it secret, his huge burial party killed anyone who saw them en route to it; then servants and soldiers who attended the funeral were massacred. Kato said an ancient Chinese text says a baby camel was buried at the grave in front of her mother so the parent could lead Khan's family to the tomb when needed. Archeologists have been forced to abandon their searches for Khan's grave in the past, however, due to protests excavation would disturb the site. An American-financed expedition to find the tomb stopped work in 2002 after being accused by a prominent Mongolian politician of desecrating traditional rulers' graves. In 1993, Japanese archeologists terminated a search for the tomb after a poll in Ulan Bator found the project unpopular. According to Mongolian tradition, violating ancestral tombs destroys the soul that serves as protector. If researchers do find the tomb, they would also likely discover the graves of Kublai Khan - Genghis' grandson who spread the Mongol empire to southeast Asia and became the first emperor of China's Yuan Dynasty - at the same time. According to ancient texts, 13 or 14 Khan warriors, including Genghis and Kublai, are buried in the same place. Kato said he would step aside and leave the matter of how to proceed up to his Mongolian colleagues if the team discovers the tombs. "We will consult our Mongolian colleagues and decide what the best next step would be - we may have to escape back to Japan," Kato said, laughing. "Excavation should be done by Mongolians - not by those of us from other countries. It is up (to) Mongolians to decide." ______________________ ______________________ Message: 4 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:45:27 -0000 "vrnparker" <vrnparker Medieval Surgeons Were Advanced Medieval Surgeons Were Advanced BBC News 10-5-4 Surgeons were carrying out complicated skull operations in medieval times, the remains of a body found at an archaeological dig show. A skull belonging to a 40-year-old peasant man, who lived between 960 and 1100AD, is the firmest evidence yet of cranial surgery, say its discoverers. The remains, found in Yorkshire, show the man survived an otherwise fatal blow to the head thanks to surgery. Nearly 700 skeletons were unearthed by English Heritage at a site near Malton. Complex surgery Scientists have been examining the remains from the now deserted village of Wharram Percy. Once a thriving community built on sheep farming, it fell into steep decline after the Black Death and was eventually completely abandoned. The skull in question, dating back to the 11th century, had been struck a near-fatal blow by a blunt weapon, causing a severe depressed fracture on the left hand side. Closer examination revealed the victim had been given life-saving surgery called trepanning. A rectangular area of the scalp, measuring 9cm by 10cm, would have been lifted to allow the depressed bone segments to be carefully removed. This would have relieved the pressure on the brain. Roman and Greek writings document the technique of trepanning for treating skull fractures, but there is no mention of it in Anglo- Saxon literature. Some historians have theorised that western Europe was deprived of such surgical knowledge for centuries after the fall of Alexandria in the 7th century. Violent times Dr Simon Mays, skeletal biologist at English Heritage's Centre for Archaeology, said: "This skull is the best evidence we have that such surgery to treat skull fractures was being performed in England at the time. "It predates medieval written accounts of the procedure by at least 100 years and is a world away from the notions that Anglo-Saxon healers were all about spells and potions." Skulls dating back to Neolithic times show trepanning was performed on individuals with no head wounds. Historians believe this was presumably to treat other ailments, possibly including mental illness. The skull of the 40-year-old Yorkshire peasant shows the fracture healed well. Scientists believe the hole that remained would have eventually closed over with hard scar tissue. But they have questioned how a peasant would have been able to afford this complicated medical treatment. Examination of the other skeletons at the site revealed high levels of malnutrition, disease and stunted growth. Dr Mays said: "Medical skills were largely reserved for the elite. "So the treatment handed out to Wharram's peasant doesn't square at all with our knowledge of the period. "It seems most probable that the operation was performed by an itinerant healer of unusual skill, whose medical acumen was handed down through oral tradition." Ten of the other skeletons, including a child, also showed signs of head injury caused by blunt objects. Dr Mays said: "Violence at Wharram seemed to involve objects that were near at hand, like farming tools. "The peasant was probably involved in the medieval equivalent of a pub fight, or could have been the victim of a robbery or a family feud." © BBC MMIV http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3714992.stm ______________________ ______________________ Message: 5 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:46:49 -0000 "vrnparker" <vrnparker VEDIC ARYANS IN WEST ASIA VEDIC ARYANS IN WEST ASIA The Kassite and Mitannic peoples An important anomaly in the AIT is the presence of the Mitanni kings in northern Mesopotamia, with their Vedic cultural heritage and language, as early as the 15th century BC, with absolutely no indication that they Were ¡°the Aryans on the way to India¡±. In fact, the Vedic memories appearing in the Mitanni texts were already remote, with only four Vedic gods mentioned amid a long list of non- Vedic gods. This does not in itself prove that the Mitanni dynasty was post-Vedic, but it certainly confers the burden of proof on those who want to declare it pre-Vedic. Their language was mature Indo-Aryan, not proto-Indo-Iranian. Satya Swarup Misra argues that the Mitannic languages already showed early Middle-Indo-Aryan traits, e.g. the assimilation of dissimilar plosives (sapta > satta), and the break-up of consonant clusters by interpolation of vowels (anaptyxis, Indra > Indara).37 This would imply that Middle-Indo-Aryan had developed a full millennium earlier than hitherto assumed, which in turn has implications for the chronology of the extant literature written in Middle-Indo-Aryan. In the centuries before the Mitanni texts, there was a Kassite dynasty in Mesopotamia, from the 18th to the 16th century BC. Linguistically assimilated, they preserved some purely Vedic names: Shuriash, Maruttash, Inda-Bugash, i.e. Surya, Marut, Indra-Bhaga (Bhaga meaning effectively ¡°god¡±, cfr. Bhag-wAn, Slavic Bog). The Kassite and Mitanni peoples were definitely considered as foreign invaders. They are latecomers in the history of the IE dispersal, appearing at a time when, leaving India out of the argument, at least the area from Iran to France was already IE. They have little bearing on the Urheimat question, but they have all the more relevance for mapping the history of the Indo-Iranian group. Probably the Kassite and Mitannic tribes were part of the same migration, with the latter settling in a peripheral area and thereby retaining their identity a few centuries longer than the Kassites in the metropolitan area of Babylon. According to Babylonian sources, the Kassites came from the swampy area in what is now southern Iraq: unlike the Iranians, who migrated from India through Afghanistan, the Kassites must have come by sea from Sindh to southern Mesopotamia. While the Iranians migrated slowly, taking generations to take control gradually of the fertile areas to the south of the Aral Lake and of the Caspian Sea, the Kassites seem to have been a warrior group moving directly from India to Mesopotamia to carry out a planned invasion which immediately gave them control of the delta area, a bridgehead for further conquests of the Babylonian heartland. They were a conquering aristocracy, and having to marry native women, they lost their language within a few generations, just like the Vikings after their conquest of Normandy. If the earlier Kassite and the later Mitanni people were indeed part of the same migration, their sudden appearance falls neatly into place if we connect them with the migration wave caused by the dessiccation of the Saraswati area in ca. 2000 BC. Indian-Mesopotamian connections relevant to the Urheimat question have to be sought in a much earlier period. Whether the country Aratta of the Sumerian sources is really to be identified with a part of the Harappan area, is uncertain; the Sumerian legend Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (late 3rd millennium BC) mentions that Aratta was the source of silver, gold and lapis lazuli, in exchange for grain which was transported not by ship but over land by donkeys; this would rather point to the mining centres in mountainous Afghanistan, arguably Harappan colonies but not the Harappan area itself. However, if this Aratta is the same as the Indian AraTTa (in West Panjab) after all, it has far-reaching implications. AraTTa is Prakrit for A-rASTra, ¡°without kingdom¡±. The point here is not its meaning, but its almost Middle-Indo-Aryan shape. Like sapta becoming satta in the Mitannic text, it suggest that this stage of Indo-Aryan is much older than hitherto assumed, viz. earlier than 2000 BC. 4.5.2. The Sumerian connection At the material high tide of the Harappan culture, Mesopotamia had trade contacts with Magan, the Makran coast west of the Indus delta, with Bad Imin, ¡°the seven cities¡±, and with Meluhha, the Indus valley. The name Meluhha is probably of Dravidian origin: Asko Parpola derives Meluhha, ¡°to be read in the early documents with the alternative value as Me-lah-ha¡±, from Dravidian Met-akam, ¡°high abode/country¡± (with mel/melu, ¡°high¡±, being the etymon of Sanskrit Meru, the cosmic mountain).38 Meluhha is the origin of Sanskrit Mleccha, Pali Milakkhu, ¡°barbarian¡±39: because of the unrefined sounds of their Prakrit and because of their cultural impurity (whether by borrowing foreign elements or simply by an indigenous decay of existing cultural standards), the people of Sindh/Meluhha were considered barbarian by the elites of Madhyadesh (the Ganga-Yamuna doab) during the Sutra period, which non- invasionists date to the late 3rd millennium BC, precisely the period when Mesopotamia had a flourishing trade with Meluhha. The search is on for common cultural motifs between the Harappan culture and Sumer. One element in literature which strikes the observer as meaningful, is this: according to the account given by the Babylonian priest Berosus, the Sumerians believed their civilization (writing and astronomy) had been brought to the Mesopotamian coast by s sages, the first of whom was one Uana-Adapa, better known through his Greek name Oannes. He was a messenger of Enki, god of the Abyss, who was worshipped at the oldest Mesopotamian city of Eridu. Like the Vedic ¡°seven sages¡±, meaning both the seven clans of Vedic seers as well as the seven major stars of Ursa Maior, these seven sages are associated with the starry sky; like the Matsya incarnation of Vishnu, Oannes¡¯s body is that of a fish. The myth of the Flood, wherein divine guidance helps the leader of mankind (Sumerian Ziusudra, Sanskrit Manu, Akkadian Utnapishtim, Hebrew Noah) to survive, is another well-known common cultural motif. The antediluvian kings in Sumer are said by Berosus to have ruled for 120 periods of 3,600 years, or 432,000 years; epochs of 3600 years were in use among Indian astronomers, and the mega-era of 432,000 is equally familiar in India as the scripturally estimated (inexact) number of syllables in the Rg Veda, and as the ¡°high¡± interpretation of the length of the Kali-Yuga .40 Rather than being a late borrowing, this number 432,000 may well be part of the common IE heritage. At least implicitly, it was present in Germanic mythology, which developed separately from Hindu mythology for several millennia before Berosus (ca. 300 BC): 800 men at each of the 540 gates of Wodan¡¯s palace makes for a total of 432,000. This does not prove any far-fetched claim that ¡°the gods were cosmonauts¡± or so, but it does show that early Indo-European had a world view involving advanced arithmetic (Sanskrit being the first and for many centuries the only language with terms for ¡°astronomical¡± numbers), and that they shared some of it with neighbouring cultures. We may be confident that a deeper search, more alert to specifically Indian contributions than is now common among sumerologists, will reveal more connections. Through the Hittites, Philistines (i.e. the ¡°Sea Peoples¡± originating on the Aegean coasts and settling on the Egyptian and Gaza coasts in ca. 1200 BC), Mitannians and Kassites, elements of IE culture were known throughout West Asia. Even ancient Israelite culture was culturally much more Indo- European than certain race theorists would like to believe. Footnotes: 37S.S. Misra: The Aryan Problem, p.10. Of course, the data are to be handled with care, for the foreign script in which the Indo-Aryan words were rendered, may not have been phonologically accurate. 38Asko Parpola: ¡°Interpreting the Indus Script¡±, in A.H. Dani: Indus Civilisation: New Perspectives, p.117-132, specifically p.121. 39V.S. Pathak (¡°Semantics of Arya¡±, in S.B. Deo & S. Kamath: The Aryan Problem, p.93) derives the modem ethnic term Baluch from Bloch (< Blukh < Mlukh) < Meluhha. This is very unlikely, if only because the Baluchis have immigrated into this area from Western Iran during the early Muslim period. Before that, in most of the areas where Pashtu and Baluchi are now spoken, the language was Indo-Aryan Prakrit. 40Discussed in Ivan Verheyden: ¡°Het begon met Oannes¡±, Bres (Antwerp), May 1976. Strictly, Kali-Yuga is to last for 1,200 years, but since ¡°a year among men is but a day among the gods¡±, scribes have magnified the number to 360 x 1,200 = 432,000. http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ch45.htm ______________________ ______________________ This is an information resource and discussion group for people interested in the World's Ancient Vedic Culture, with a focus on its historical, archeological and scientific aspects. Also topics about India, Hinduism, God, and other aspects of World Culture are welcome. Remember, Vedic Culture is not an artificial imposition, but is the natural state of a society that is in harmony with God and the environment.Om Shantih, Harih Om ------ ------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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