Quantcast
Channel: mAnasa-taraMgiNI
Viewing all 615 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Rehabilitating king vidyAdhara and the sense of Hindu identity

September 17, 2011, 12:43 am
$
0
0
The prelude tvam Adau vikramAdityaH sR^iShTo .abhUH svAMshato mayA | mlechCha-rUpAvatIrNAnAm asurANAM prashAntaye || (bhaTTa somadeva in the vetAla pa~nchaviMshati) I generated you vikramAditya as a part of my own self to silence the asura-s in the form of the mlechCha-s Ekanetra remarked that there was nothing really new to state in geopolitics: either we [...]
↧
Search

The proto-Australoid deep within us

September 27, 2011, 12:04 am
$
0
0
Molecular biology is establishing that there might be an element of truth in the quaint anthropological conjectures of Franz Weidenrich. The Indian subcontinent is of enormous interest in terms of being a major center for admixture of distinct human clades. Unfortunately its human biodiversity has not be subject to molecular analysis to the extant one [...]
↧
↧

yuddha-vyUha-s, mlechCha-s and vaNija-nIti in the last Hindu empire

October 9, 2011, 12:10 am
$
0
0
The narrative of the final stages of premodern bhAratavarSha remains in a rather misleading state, despite these times being much closer to our own. In the modern phase (post-independence) tacit encouragement from the occidentally oriented chAchAjI resulted in historical narratives being dominated by Marxists. This trend was also covertly supported by several external forces as [...]
↧

hiraNyamudrA

October 29, 2011, 11:05 am
↧

Pitch of male vocalization

October 30, 2011, 12:36 am
$
0
0
A primate male at his peak with his weaponry The densely peopled lands of bhArata, where resources are limiting and intra-specific competition is intense, one has some of the finest opportunities to savor the ethology of the third chimpanzee. Many moons ago when we had just transitioned to college we observed that several males were [...]
↧
↧

bhavabhUti’s avifauna and flora

November 2, 2011, 12:14 am
$
0
0
A good kavI of yore is supposed to have been a naturalist. We had earlier given an example of this in the form of vAkpati’s characterization of the kingfisher. Now we shall provide an example from the collection of bhavabhUti of vidharbha, one the greatest poets of all times. Like vAkpati he was also in [...]
↧

Molluscan phylogeny

November 5, 2011, 12:34 am
$
0
0
Long ago in our youth we were observing a trochophore larva of an annelid under our microscope, when we raised our eye from the eyepiece in flash of realization. Right then the morphological continuity of Cambrian forms like Wiwaxia and the halkierids, annelids and molluscs flashed in our minds. Some time before that we had [...]
↧

Some considerations on Indian polity

November 13, 2011, 12:03 am
$
0
0
Along with the failure to restore saMskR^ita, one of the congenital defects of modern India was its failure to reacquire its tradition of political thought. While such visions might have existed in the world of the Lal-Bal-Pal trio, they were certainly denuded by the coming of mahAtmA-chAchA duo. Of the two, chAchA had the merest [...]
↧
Search

Fragments of West Asian heathen thought: late surviving Hermetica

November 25, 2011, 12:02 am
$
0
0
To be read in conjunction with this. Many moons ago aurvasheyI brought my attention to a curious news item in an Indian paper – in small print it narrated a village conflict involving the deployment of what might be termed “Islamized” tantra for the lack of a better word. These practices are particular common in [...]
↧
↧

The moon on the waves

December 3, 2011, 12:31 am
$
0
0
We had a lengthy conversation. She smiled, and said: After all the kApAlikau can recognize each other even without the Chomma. When a strI with tresses flowing like sarasvatI in her descent, stanau like kUrma-pR^iShTau and nitambau like kapittha-phalau places her self on the patra, puruSha-s buzz around her by the thousands like mAshika-s. She [...]
↧

Some comments on the biology of insulin resistance in jaMbudvIpa

December 11, 2011, 12:34 am
$
0
0
A recent paper by Metspalu et al in AHJG adds additional data to the growing material on the genetics of the Indians. The paper has several issues that are rather unsatisfactory – chief among them is the attempt to meaninglessly hand wave on OIT and AIT. The AIT is sitting right there in their data, [...]
↧

Squaring of the circle by Srinivasa Ramanujan

December 21, 2011, 12:10 am
$
0
0
Geometric constructions have a special effect on us because they depict visually the Platonic abstractions that often underlie the laws of nature. So in a sense a construction is a mapping of natural laws on the canvas of Platonic space. So, to certain minds they are inherently synesthetic, and allow lesser minds, such as ours, [...]
↧

kautukasaMgha

December 26, 2011, 12:58 pm
$
0
0
The train ground to a stop and we stepped out into the cold silence swathed in armor saying “kaMbalvantaM na bAdhate shItaM”. None could recognize us beneath our armor. Since our mind was conditioned to see S we did not notice M though he passed us a couple of times in the entirely empty station. [...]
↧
↧

The shrauta animal sacrifice

January 1, 2012, 12:31 am
$
0
0
The shrauta animal sacrifice is a tradition of great importance in the development of Hindu science because it was here that they first learned their anatomy. This knowledge was to come of good use in their medical tradition. However, the rise of counter-sacrifice traditions resulted in a general decline of this tradition – by the [...]
↧

Reading the downward turn of the yuga-chakra

January 12, 2012, 12:03 am
$
0
0
A conversation, tinged with sorrow and pleasure at the same time, reminded us of a pickle of chillies that was so artful crafted by ST in her flourish of sUpakalA. But one thing was clear that the yuga-chakra was turning downwards. We have spoken of this rather clearly before from other angles (here and here), [...]
↧
Search

A note on the Tantric state among the chIna-s and recovery of a lost vainAyaka ritual

January 15, 2012, 12:37 am
$
0
0
In 705 CE, amoghavajra was born in Samarkand to a brAhmaNa teacher from either Prayag or Kashi and his Iranian wife. His father died when he was 10 years old and he moved to the chInadesha with his mother and uncle. There he became a student of the great nAstika tAntrika vajrabodhi, a brAhmaNa from [...]
↧

A saiddhAntika adaptation of the vAstupuruSha narrative

January 21, 2012, 12:53 pm
$
0
0
We had earlier pointed out that the vAstupuruSha narrative in the smArta vAstu texts ( e.g. as provided by varAhamihira in his bR^ihatsaMhitA) might be derived from an old brAhmaNa-like narrative that was provided in the context of explaining the vAstu grid. As we had seen before this square grid with constituent gods “squashing” the [...]
↧
↧

The irony of vAsudeva sArvabhauma

January 23, 2012, 11:58 pm
$
0
0
In the declining years of the Hindu world, in the late 1400s and first half of 1500s lived a remarkable thinker vAsudeva sArvabhauma. The intellectual feats of the paraMpara to which he belonged are one of the forgotten flashes of a profound saMskR^ita tradition – a great intellectual edifice of Hindu thought. Regarding vAsudeva what [...]
↧

Notes on vaiShNava-shaiva sectarian competition in the purANa-s

February 2, 2012, 12:07 am
$
0
0
The appropriation and/or downgrading of each others ancient narratives is a common practice seen among shaiva-s, vaiShNava-s shAkta-s, gANapatya-s and to a lesser extent the kaumAra-s. Many years ago when we first began our studies in the purANa-s we became interested in the sharabha narrative that we we first encountered in the shiva puraNa [Footnote [...]
↧

On a paramAra warrior queen and some Saracenic structures in lATa

February 12, 2012, 12:28 am
$
0
0
S and other members of aurvasheyI’s family have rich body of legend concerning their tAntrika paraMpara. We have discussed some of this with the intention of mapping it on the historical background which might have points of interest. We have presented one such tale before. At some point before the paramAra-s rose to great power [...]
↧
Viewing all 615 articles
Browse latest View live
Search