DARIUS USES THE WORD HINDU,BC 518

Islam Comes to India 6

Dynasties came and went for several hundred years until the late 16th century, when Sindh was brought into the Mughal Empire by Akbar, himself born in Umerkot in Sindh. Mughal rule from their provincial capital of Thatta was to last in lower Sindh until the early 18th century. Upper Sindh was a different picture, however, with the indigenous Kalhora dynasty holding power, consolidating their rule until the mid-18th century, when the Persian sacking of the Mughal throne in Delhi allowed them to grab the rest of Sindh. 

 It is believed by most scholars that the earliest trace of human inhabitation in India traces to the Soan Sakaser Valley between the Indus and the Jhelum rivers. This period goes back to the first inter-glacial period in the Second Ice Age, and remnants of stone and flint tools have been found.

Sindh and surrounding areas contain the ruins of the Indus Valley Civilization. There are remnants of thousand-year-old cities and structures, with a notable example in Sindh being that of Mohenjo Daro. Hundreds of settlements have been found spanning an area of about a hundred miles. These ancient towns and cities had advanced features such as city-planning, brick-built houses, sewage and draining systems, as well as public baths. The people of the Indus Valley also developed a writing system, that has to this day still not been fully deciphered.The people of the Indus Valley had domesticated bovines, sheep, elephants, and camels. The civilization also had knowledge of metallurgy. Gold, silver, copper, tin, and alloys were widely in use. Arts and crafts flourished during this time as well; the use of beads, seals, pottery, and bracelets are evident.

 Literary evidence from the Vedic period suggests a transition from early small janas, or tribes, to many janapadas (territorial civilizations) and gana-samgha societies. The gana samgha societies are loosely translated to being oligarchies or republics. These political entities were represented from the Rigveda to the Astadhyayi by Pāṇini.Most of the Janapadas that had exerted large territorial influence, or mahajanapadas, had been raised in the Indo-Gangetic Plain with the exception of Gandhara in what is now northern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Afghanistan. There was a large level of contact between all the janapadas, with descriptions being given of trading caravans, movement of students from universities, and itineraries of princes.The conquest of Sindh began with threr Achaemenid conquest.

Achaemenid Coin

The Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley refers to the Achaemenid military conquest and occupation of the territories of the North-western regions of the Indian subcontinent, from the 6th to 4th centuries BC. The conquest of the areas as far as the Indus river is often dated to the time of Cyrus the Great, in the period between 550-539 BCE.The first secure epigraphic evidence, given by the Behistun Inscription, gives a date before or about 518 BCE. Achaemenid penetration into the area of the Indian subcontinent occurred in stages, starting from northern parts of the River Indus and moving southward.These areas of the Indus valley became formal Achaemenid satrapies as mentioned in several Achaemenid inscriptions. The Achaemenid occupation of the Indus Valley ended with the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great circa 323 BCE. The Achaemenid occupation, although less successful than that of the later Greeks, Sakas or Kushans, had the effect of acquainting India to the outer world. 

Cyrus the Great

The conquest is often thought to have started circa 535 BCE, during the time of Cyrus the Great (600-530 BCE). Cyrus probably went as far as the banks of the Indus River and organized the conquered territories under the Satrapy of Gandara. The Province was also referred to as Paruparaesanna (Greek: Parapamisadae) in the Babylonian and Elamite versions of the Behistun inscription. The geographical extent of this province was wider than the Indian Gandhara. Various accounts, such as those of Xenophon or Ctesias, who wrote Indica, also suggest that Cyrus conquered parts of India. Another Indian Province was conquered named Sattagydia. It was probably contiguous to Gandhara, but its actual location is uncertain. Fleming locates it between Arachosia and the middle Indus. Fleming also mentions Maka, in the area of Gedrosia, as one of the Indian satrapies

A successor of Cyrus the Great, Darius I was back in 518 BCE. The date of 518 BCE is given by the Behistun inscription and is also often the one given for the secure occupation of Gandhara in Punjab. Darius I later conquered an additional province that he called “Hidūš” in his inscriptions. The Hamadan Gold and Silver Tablet inscription of Darius I also refers to his conquests in India. 

Ancient India

 The exact area of the Province of Hindush is uncertain. Some scholars have described it as the middle and lower Indus Valley and the approximate region of modern Sindh, but there is no known evidence of Achaemenid presence in this region, and deposits of gold, which Herodotus says was produced in vast quantities by this Province, are also unknown in the Indus delta region. Alternatively, Hindush may have been the region of Taxila and Western Punjab, where there are indications that a Persian satrapy may have existed. There are few remains of Achaemenid presence in the east, but, according to Fleming, the archaeological site of Bhir Mound in Taxila remains the “most plausible candidate for the capital of Achaemenid India”, based on the fact that numerous pottery styles similar to those of the Achaemenids in the East have been found there, and that “there are no other sites in the region with Bhir Mound’s potential”.

According to Herodotus, Darius I sent the Greek explorer Scylax of Caryanda to sail down the Indus river, heading a team of spies, in order to explore the course of the Indus River. After a periplus of 30 months, Scylax is said to have returned to Egypt near the Red Sea, and the seas between the Near East and India were made use of by Darius.

Also according to Herodotus, the territories of Gandhara, Sattagydia, Dadicae and Aparytae formed the 7th province of the Achaemenid Empire for tax-payment purposes, while Indus formed the 20th tax region.

Darius Plate With Hindu Sign

The Achaemenid army was not uniquely Persian. Rather it was composed of many different ethnicities that were part of the vast Achaemenid Empire. The army included Bactrians, Sakas (Scythians), Parthians, and Sogdians. Herodotus gives a full list of the ethnicities of the Achaemenid army, which included Ionians (Greeks), and even Ethiopians. These ethnicities are likely to have been included in the Achaemenid army which invaded India.

The Persians may have later participated, together with Sakas and Greeks, in the campaigns of Chandragupta Maurya to gain the throne of Magadha circa 320 BCE. The Mudrarakshasa states that after Alexander’s death, an alliance of “Shaka-Yavana-Kamboja-Parasika-Bahlika” was used by Chandragupta Maurya in his campaign to take the throne in Magadha and found the Mauryan Empire. The Sakas were the Scythians, the Yavanas were the Greeks, and the Parasikas were the Persians. David Brainard Spooner observed of Chandragupta Maurya that “it was with largely the Persian army that he won the throne of India.

Ancient India was very rich.

SINDH FALLS,TEMPLES DESTROYED

Islam Comes to India 5

Raja Dahir (663 – 712 CE) was the last Hindu ruler of Sindh, present-day Pakistan, in the northern region of the Indian subcontinent. He was member of the Brahmin dynasty.He was a Pushkarna Brahmin king, son of Chach of Aror, who ascended the throne after the death of his uncle, Chandar. Eight years later, Dahir’s kingdom was invaded by Ramal at Kannauj. After initial losses, the enemy advanced on Aror and he allied himself with Alafi, an Arab. Alafi and his warriors (who were exiled from the Umayyad caliphate) were recruited; they led Dahir’s armies in repelling the invading forces, remaining as valued members of Dahir’s court. In a later war in 711 with the caliphate, however, Alafi served as a military advisor but refused to take an active part in the campaign; as a result, he later obtained a pardon from the caliph.

In 711 CE, his kingdom was conquered by the Ummayad Caliphate led by General Muhammad bin Qasim. He was killed at the Battle of Aror at the banks of the Indus River, near modern-day Nawabshah.

Before the war,he is believed to have said:

“I am going to meet the Arabs in the open battle, and fight them as best as I can. If I crush them, my kingdom will then be put on a firm footing. But if I am killed honourably, the event will be recorded in the books of Arabia and India, and will be talked about by great men. It will be heard by other kings in the world, and it will be said that Raja Dahir of Sindh sacrificed his precious life for the sake of his country, in fighting with the enemy.”

 The primary reason cited in the Chach Nama for the expedition by the governor of Basra, Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, against Raja Dahir, was a pirate raid off the coast of Debal resulting in gifts to the caliph from the king of Serendib (modern Sri Lanka) being stolen. Meds (a tribe of Scythians living in Sindh) also known as Bawarij had pirated upon Sassanid shipping in the past, from the mouth of the Tigris to the Sri Lankan coast, in their bawarij and now were able to prey on Arab shipping from their bases at Kutch, Debal and Kathiawar.

Al-Hajjaj gave Muhammad bin Qasim  the command of the expedition between 708 and 711, when Qasim was only 15–17 years old, apparently because two previous Umayyad commanders had not been successful in punishing Sindh’s ruler Raja Dahir for his failure to prevent pirates from disrupting Muslim shipping off the coast of Sindh.Al-Hajjaj superintended this campaign from Kufa by maintaining close contact with Qasim in the form of regular reports for which purpose special messengers were deputed between Basra and Sindh.

The military strategy had been outlined by Al-Hajjaj in a letter sent to Muhammad bin Qasim.

My ruling is given: Kill anyone belonging to the ahl-i-harb (combatants); arrest their sons and daughters for hostages and imprison them. Whoever does not fight against us…grant them aman (safety) and settle their tribute [amwal] as dhimmah (protected person)…

 The army which departed from Shiraz under Muhammad consisted of 6,000 Syrian cavalry and detachments of mawali (sing. mawla; non-Arab, Muslim freedmen) from Iraq.At the borders of Sindh he was joined by an advance guard and six thousand camel cavalry and later, reinforcements from the governor of Makran were transferred directly to Debal (Daybul), at the mouth of the Indus, by sea along with five manjaniks (catapults).The army that eventually captured Sindh would later be swelled by the Gurjars and Meds as well as other irregulars who heard of the Arab successes in Sindh.When Muhammad passed through the Makran desert while raising his forces, he had to subdue the restive towns of Fannazbur and Arman Belah (Lasbela), both of which had previously been conquered by the Arabs.

 The first town assaulted in Qasim’s Sindh campaign was Debal and upon the orders of al-Hajjaj, he exacted a retribution on Debal by giving no quarter to its residents or priests and destroying its great temple.From Debal, the Arab army then marched northeast taking towns such as Nerun and Sadusan (Sehwan) without fighting. One-fifth of the war booty including slaves were remitted to al-Hajjaj and the Caliph.The conquest of these towns was accomplished with relative ease; however, Dahir’s armies being prepared on the other side of the Indus had not yet been confronted. In preparation to meet them, Qasim returned to Nerun to resupply and receive reinforcements sent by al-Hajjaj. Camped on the east bank of the Indus, Muhammad sent emissaries and bargained with the river Jats and boatmen. Upon securing the aid of Mokah Basayah, “the King of the island of Bet”, Qasim crossed over the river where he was joined by the forces of the Thakore of Bhatta and the western Jats.

Sometime before the final battle, Dahar’s vizier approached him and suggested that Dahar should take refuge with one of the friendly kings of India. “You should say to them, ‘I am a wall between you and the Arab army. If I fall, nothing will stop your destruction at their hands.'” If that wasn’t acceptable to Dahar, said the vizier, then he should at least send away his family to some safe point in India. Dahar refused to do either. “I cannot send away my family to security while the families of my thakurs and nobles remain here. “

Dahir then tried to prevent Qasim from crossing the Indus River, moving his forces to its eastern banks. Eventually, however, Qasim crossed and defeated forces at Jitor led by Jaisiah (Dahir’s son).

At Ar-rur (Rohri) Qasim was met by Dahir’s forces and the eastern Jats in battle. Dahir died in the battle,his head was cut off from his body and sent to Hajjaj ; his forces were defeated and Qasim took control of Sindh.In the wake of the battle enemy soldiers were executed —though artisans, merchants and farmers were spared —and Dahir and his chiefs, the “daughters of princes” and the usual fifth of the booty and slaves were sent to al-Hajjaj. Soon the capitals of the other provinces, Brahmanabad, Alor (Aror) and Multan, were captured alongside other in-between towns with only light Muslim casualties.Multan was a key site in the Hindu religion.

 After battles all fighting men were executed and their wives and children enslaved in considerable numbers and the usual fifth of the booty and slaves were sent to al-Hajjaj.Where resistance was strong, prolonged and intensive, often resulting in considerable Arab casualties, Muhammad bin Qasim’s response was dramatic, inflicting 6,000 deaths at Rawar, between 6,000 and 26,000 at Brahmanabad, 4,000 at Iskalandah and 6,000 at Multan.

The concept of Jihad as a morale booster was used by Qasim. He established Islamic Sharia law over the people of the region.

Everywhere taxes (mal) and tribute (kharaj) were settled and hostages taken — occasionally this also meant the custodians of temples. Non-Muslim natives were excused from military service and from payment of the religiously mandated tax system levied upon Muslims called Zakat, the tax system levied upon them instead was the jizya -that tax came to exist for the first time in India. The preference of collection of jizya over the conversion to Islam is a major economic motivator. Hindus and Buddhists who were classified as Dhimmis had to pay mandatory Jizya,.

 In Al-Biruni’s narrative, according to Manan Ahmed Asif – a historian of Islam in South and Southeast Asia, “Qasim first asserts the superiority of Islam over the polytheists by committing a taboo (killing a cow) and publicly soiling the idol (giving the cow meat as an offering)” before allowing the temple to continue as a place of worship. Some temples escaped destruction such as the Sun Temple of Multan on payment of jizya.Majority of the population continued to remain Hindu who had to pay the jizya imposed by the Muslim state. Qasim’s success has been partly ascribed to Dahir being an unpopular Hindu king ruling over a Buddhist majority who saw Chach of Alor and his kin as usurpers of the Rai Dynasty. This is attributed to having resulted in support being provided by Buddhists and inclusion of rebel soldiers serving as valuable infantry in his cavalry-heavy force from the Jat and Meds. Brahman, Buddhist, Greek, and Arab testimony however can be found that attests towards amicable relations between the adherents of the two religions up to the 7th century.

Three women from Chachnama, Dahar’s wife, Queen Ladi, and Dahar’s daughters Suriya and Preemal carry equal weight in the cultural memory of Sindhi and broader Indian past. The stories are recited to explicate the nationhood of Sindh to argue against imperial aggressors. These women are seen as proud, daring personifications of ancient Sindhi culture that resisted conqueror.

Sindh

The conquest of Sindh, in modern-day Pakistan, although costly, was a major gain for the Umayyad Caliphate. However, further gains were halted by Hindu kingdoms during Arab campaigns. The Arabs attempted to invade India but they were defeated by the north Indian king Nagabhata of the Gurjara Pratihara Dynasty and by the south Indian Emperor Vikramaditya II of the Chalukya dynasty in the early 8th century. After the failure of further expeditions on Kathiawar, the Arab chroniclers conceded that the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) gave up the project of conquering any part of India.

PLAN TO ATTACK INDIA WAS MADE IN IRAQ

Islam Comes to India 4

Al-Ḥajjāj, in full al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ath-Thaqafī, (born 661, aṭ-Ṭāʾif, Hejaz, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died June 714, Wāsiṭ, Iraq), the man behind the first islamic attack on India,was one of the most cruel and able provincial governors under the Umayyad caliphate (661–750). He played a critical role in consolidating the administrative structure of the Umayyad dynasty during its early years.

Al-Ḥajjāj was a school teacher in his native town as a young man, but little else is known of his earlier years. He first became publicly active when, in the reign of the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, he restored discipline among troops being used to repress a rebellion in Iraq. In 692 he personally led troops in crushing the rebellion of ʿAbd Allāh ibn az-Zubayr in Mecca. The brutality with which he secured his victory was to recur during the rest of his public life.

For several years he was governor of the provinces that surrounded Mecca, but in 694 he was made governor of Iraq, which, because of its location and because of the intrigues by various sects there, was the most demanding and the most important of the administrative posts in the Islāmic empire. Al-Ḥajjāj was completely devoted to the service of the Umayyads, and the latter were never fearful of his great power. He was instrumental in persuading the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik to allow the succession to pass to al-Walīd, who, as caliph, allowed al-Ḥajjāj complete freedom in the administration of Iraq. Al-Ḥajjāj did much to promote prosperity in his province. He began to strike a purely Arab coinage that soon replaced older currencies. He stopped the migration of the rural population to the towns in an effort to improve agricultural production, and he saw to it that the irrigation system was kept in good repair.

 Al Hajjaj introduced a uniform version of the Quran. To revive agricultural production and increase tax revenue, al-Hajjaj expelled non-Arab Muslim converts from the garrison cities of Kufa and Basra to their rural villages of origin and collected from them the jizya (poll tax) nominally reserved for non-Muslim subjects and oversaw large-scale canal digging projects. In 701, al-Hajjaj, with reinforcements from Syria, crushed a mass rebellion led by the Kufan Arab nobleman Ibn al-Ash’ath whose ranks spanned the Arab troops, Muslim converts and religious elites of Iraq. Consequently, al-Hajjaj further tightened control over the province, founding the city of Wasit to house the loyalist Syrian troops whom he thereafter relied on to enforce his rule. A highly capable though ruthless statesman, strict in character, a harsh and demanding master, al-Hajjaj was widely feared by his contemporaries and became a deeply controversial figure and an object of deep-seated enmity among later, pro-Abbasid writers, who ascribed to him persecutions and mass executions.  

Arriving at Kufa, al-Hajjaj gave an inaugural sermon at the local mosque that has become famous and is “often cited as an example of Arab eloquence”. The situation he found there was one of disorder. The troops of Basra and Kufa, ostensibly garrisoned at Ramhurmuz under al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra had instead, upon the death of Bishr, left the camp and were idling in the cities. In order to restore discipline, al-Hajjaj announced that any man who did not within three days return to the camp would be put to death and his property be left open to plunder. This proved effective, but when he went to the troops to distribute the pay, al-Hajjaj faced another mutiny under Ibn al-Jarud because of making cuts in pay that the troops refused to accept. These problems overcome, al-Hajjaj sent the troops against the Kharijites. In 696 al-Muhallab defeated the Azariqa who had rallied around Qatari ibn al-Fuja’a as their anti-caliph, and in spring 697 another Kharijite leader, Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani, was defeated on the Dujayl river in Khuzistan with the aid of Syrian troops. In the same year, al-Hajjaj suppressed the rebellion of the governor of Mada’in, al-Mutarrif ibn al-Mughira ibn Shu’ba, who had allied with the Kharijites.

These campaigns eradicated the Kharijite rebellion, but came at a cost to his relationship with the Iraqis: the campaigns against the Kharijites were extremely unpopular, and measures like the cuts in pay, according to Hugh N. Kennedy, “[seem] almost to have goaded the Iraqis into rebellion, as if looking for an excuse to break them”] The explosion came in 699: when he had been conferred the governorships of Khurasan and Sistan, al-Hajjaj had given it to al-Muhallab, but in Sistan, the situation was far more unstable, and the country had to be essentially reconquered. An army under the local governor Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Bakra had suffered a heavy defeat against the ruler of the kingdom of Zabulistan, known as the Zunbil, and now al-Hajjaj ordered Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash’ath, the most pre-eminent member of the Kufan aristocracy (the ashrāf) to lead an army against the Zunbil. This army was drawn from the Kufan soldiery, and such was the splendour of its equipment, or perhaps the “proud and haughty manner of the Kufan soldiers and ashrāf who composed it” (G. R. Hawting), that it became known in history as the “Peacock Army”. This expedition marked the beginning of a rebellion that came close to destroying not only al-Hajjaj’s, but also Umayyad, power in Iraq.

 Al-Hajjaj, sent letter after letter to his commander, demanding an immediate assault against the Zunbil. The tone of these letters was extremely offensive, and he threatened to dismiss Ibn al-Ash’ath and appoint his own brother Ishaq to command the expedition instead. Al-Hajjaj’s harsh tone and unreasonable demands, as well as the army’s evident reluctance to continue such a protracted and arduous campaign so far from their homes, provoked a widespread mutiny, led by Ibn al-Ash’ath himself. The rebel army marched back to Iraq, growing to over 100,000 strong in the process as they were joined by other malcontents, and being transformed from a mutiny against al-Hajjaj—denounced as an enemy of God and a latter-day Pharaoh—to a full-blown anti-Umayyad movement. 

Seal of Hajjaj

Al-Hajjaj tried to stop the rebels at Tustar, but the rebels were victorious (early 701). Al-Hajjaj abandoned Basra to the rebels, and Ibn al-Ash’ath entered the city in triumph. Reinforced with Syrian troops, al-Hajjaj managed to score a minor victory, after which the bulk of the rebel army left Basra for their natural stronghold, Kufa. Al-Hajjaj recaptured Basra and pursued Ibn al-Ash’ath to Kufa, encamping near the city. Ibn al-Ash’ath’s progress had sufficiently alarmed the Umayyad court that they sought a negotiated settlement, even though they kept sending Syrian reinforcements to al-Hajjaj. Abd al-Malik offered to dismiss al-Hajjaj, appoint Ibn al-Ash’ath as governor over one of the Iraqi towns, and raise the Iraqis’ pay so that they received the same amount as the Syrians. Ibn al-Ash’ath was inclined to accept, but the more radical of his followers, especially the scholars known as qurrāʾ, refused, believing that the offered terms revealed the government’s weakness, and pushed for outright victory. The two armies eventually met in the Battle of Dayr al-Jamajim in April 701, which resulted in a crushing victory for al-Hajjaj and his more disciplined Syrians. Kufa surrendered after that, and al-Hajjaj further undercut Ibn al-Ash’ath’s support by promising amnesty to those who surrendered, providing however that they acknowledged that their rebellion had been tantamount to renouncing Islam; those who refused were executed.

 In 702 al-Hajjaj founded the city of Wasit, situated midway between Basra and Kufa, where he moved his seat. Al-Hajjaj was now the undisputed master not only of Iraq, but of the entire Islamic East.As governor of Iraq and viceroy of the East, al-Hajjaj supervised a major wave of expansion. He appointed Muhammad ibn al-Qasim al-Thaqafi to lead the conquest of northwestern India, Qutayba ibn Muslim to conquer Transoxiana, and Mujja’a ibn Si’r to Oman.

Al-Hajjaj died in Wasit in May or June 714 at the age of 53 or 54; The cause of his death, according to the medieval historian Ibn Khallikan (d. 1282), was a stomach cancer.

Al-Hajjaj killed four companions (sahaba) of Muhammad, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, Jabir ibn Abd-Allah, Sa’id ibn Jubayr and Kumayl ibn Ziyad. While besieging the city of Mecca, Al-Hajjaj crucified Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and said, “No one can take down his body except Asma (daughter of the late caliph Abu Bakr); she must come to me and ask permission of me, and only then will his body be taken down”.

He is recorded by Tha’ālibī (Laţ’āif, 142) as one of the four men to have killed more than 100,000 men (the others being Abu Harb, Abu Muslim and Babak). It was mostly due to his numerous campaigns and the many uprisings and revolts against the empire during his reign.

THE WORLD IS ONE FAMILY,BE HAPPY

Two Eternal Mantras of Hinduism

In these trying times, we Indians have to remind the world,the two eternal mantras of Hinduism.

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a Sanskrit phrase found in Hindu texts such as the Maha Upanishad, which means “the world is one family” .The original verse appears in Chapter 6 of Maha Upanishad VI.71-73..Also found in the Rig Veda , it is considered the most important moral value in the Indian society. This verse of Maha Upanishad is engraved in the entrance hall of the parliament of India.

The full version of this prayer is stated as follows:

अयं बन्धुरयं नेति गणना लघुचेतसां उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकं 
ayam bandhurayam neti ganana laghuchetasam udaracharitanam tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam

Only small men discriminate saying: One is a relative; the other is a stranger. For those who live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family.

The Full version of Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavanthu is:

स्वस्तिप्रजाभ्यः परिपालयंतां न्यायेन मार्गेण महीं महीशाः ।

गोब्राह्मणेभ्यः शुभमस्तु नित्यं लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनोभवंतु ॥

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः |

svastiprajābhyaḥ paripālayantāṁ nyāyēna mārgēṇa mahīṁ mahīśāḥ ।

gōbrāhmaṇēbhyaḥ śubhamastu nityaṁ lōkāḥ samastāḥ sukhinōbhavantu ॥

ōm̐ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ ॥

This phrase is from one of the Mangala Mantra often recited after a pooja or religious ceremony . The origin of the Lokakshema, often called the Mangala Mantra, is obscure. While some yoga practitioners and Hindu scholars erroneously point to the Rig Veda or the invocation of the Katha Upanishad, the only written attribution or textual source of “lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu” seems to be stone inscriptions from the Rulers of the Sangama Dynasty (1336 A.D.-1485 A.D.)

See the play on words. Loka Samastha is reversed and Samastha Loka appears in the next sentence.

This is the beauty of Hinduism. Literary dexterity rooted in profundity, it’s never just for effect.

Sukhino Bhavantu (be happy) remains the same in both the lines of this mantra.

Loka samastha means “all the people in the world ” (Lokah has two meanings in Sanskrit, one: people; and the other: world).

Samastha loka takes a leap from the individual to the universal. It means all the worlds. Not just this earth; His abode, even other worlds which are not seen by the ordinary mortal vision.

So it means. Let all the people in the world be happy. Let all the worlds be happy.

What a noble sentiment! Vedic rishi has given to us to uplift us.

This mantra is the Vedic mantra of highest well-wishing, highest inclusiveness, highest blessing. By chanting this mantra, we break our egoistic boundaries and wish the world (s)well. And this is really apt because no one can prosper unless others prosper too. If you alone are happy, your happiness cannot be lasting. Because, if you alone are happy, those around you and farther away from you, who are not happy, will be jealous, covetous, rivalrous. However, if they are happy too, there can be kind feelings towards each other. This is a mantra elegantly embodies maitri (loving kindness) and compassion. A compassionate lens. It reminds us that we are a part of the universe and can positively impact all of creation.

Let us chant this daily.

लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु, समस्त लोकाः सुखिनो भवन्तु

The Hindu religion which is born out of the principles of the Sanaathana Dharma, considers the whole world as a single family – “Vasudhaiva Kutumbam”.

In a single family, generally speaking every member of the family , desires the welfare and wellbeing of all the members of the family.This is a universal truth all over the world in all continents , among all religions and among all cultures of all races and regions of all people the of the world.

At the end of any function, people generally wish the welfare of a class of people. But the Sanaathana Dharma Saampradaayam wishes the welfare of :All the living beings (both human and non-human /animals of the whole world). It doesn’t end there. It wishes the welfare of :
All mountains, rivers, oceans and every atom in the world. That is the greatness of that slogan :
Lokaah Samasthaah Sukhino Bhavanthu”.

A K ANTONY, ANIL AND THE DEFENCE BETRAYAL

Questions On a Defence Portal

Anil K Antony, according to business sites, is a Venture Architect, Technology Evangelist and Social Entrepreneur. He is the Executive Director of Cyber India (www.cyberindia.org), a think tank in cyber security and surveillance technologies and the Vice President and a member of the board of trustees of Navoothan Foundation (www.navoothan.org), a non-profit focusing on healthcare and empowerment of women. 

It doesn’t end there-Anil is the son of former Union Minister for Defence, A K Antony, and he is the Convener of the digital cell of the Congress. Something very curious happened after the emergence of the Sprinklr controversy in Kerala. Anil K Antony’s name was taken off the website of Cyber India.

But any number of internet searches will tell you he is its executive director. Cyber India has its primary office in California, and it has offices in New Delhi and Bengaluru.

Cyber India website

Why his name was taken off?

Just going to the site of Cyber India will reveal the truth: four high-placed Americans are there on the board of Cyber India. They are: General Wesley K Clark
Retired four-star general, US Army., Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, NATO., and Former Democratic U.S. Presidential Candidate (2004 Primary).  James Lee Witt, Former White House Cabinet member, Michael McNerney, Founder of Efflux, and N MacDonnel "Don Ulsch.

Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr. is a retired general of the United States Army. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master’s degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the U.S. Army, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Wesley Clark

Clark commanded Operation Allied Force in the Kosovo War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.

Clark joined the 2004 race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination as a candidate in 2003, but withdrew from the primary race in 2004, after winning the Oklahoma state primary, endorsing and campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Clark leads a political action committee, “WesPAC”, which he formed after the 2004 primaries and used to support Democratic Party candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. Clark was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008, but, on September 15, 2007, endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton. After Clinton dropped out of the presidential race, Clark endorsed the then-presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama. 

Clark served as a co-chairman of Growth Energy, an ethanol lobbying group, and is on the board of directors of BNK Petroleum. Between July 2012 and November 2015, he was an honorary special advisor to Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta on economic and security matters.

James Lee Witt, Former White House Cabinet Member and Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under President Bill Clinton, has strong relationships and is respected across the aisle, by both Democrats and Republicans.

Anil Antony

Witt was born in Paris, Arkansas, and was raised in Dardanelle, in Yell County, Arkansas. He and Clinton met as boys in Little League.[He founded a construction business in 1968. At 34, he was elected County Judge of Yell County. Witt was re-elected to the post six times and was recognized by the National Association of Counties for his work. Witt was a charter Board Chairman of Child Development Inc., which works to advance Head Start programs.

In 1988, shortly after being reelected county Judge, an administrative position he had held for ten years, Witt was appointed by then-Governor Bill Clinton to be the head of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services. 

James Lee Witt

There he reorganized the state’s emergency management process. Clinton subsequently moved the new Fire Protection Services Program to OES, including the board and the grant program, which was administered in conjunction with the state Insurance Department.

When Clinton was elected President, he appointed Witt to head FEMA, for which Witt was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1993. In 1996, FEMA was given cabinet rank. 

Michael McNerney, Co-founder and CEO of Efflux Systems, a cybersecurity startup focusing on post-breach analytics and incident response.

Michael is a technology entrepreneur and military veteran with a primary focus on cybersecurity. He currently works as the Chief Operations Officer of cybersecurity insurance startup Arceo. Previously, he led the threat intelligence business at Arbor Networks and was the Co-founder & CEO of Efflux Systems, a cybersecurity startup focused on advanced network analytics (acquired by Arbor Networks).

McNerney

Mike has also served as a Cyber Policy Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he drafted and negotiated key pieces of federal legislation through the congressional process and worked with the defence industry, internet service providers and tech companies to develop cybersecurity programs. Prior to that position, Mike worked in the U.S. State Department, where he pioneered rule of law and economic development programs in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Mike is an affiliate at the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Chair & Co-founder of Technology for Global Security, and a Board Member of Vets-in-Tech. He graduated from the University of California, Davis, and earned his J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law.

Don Ulsch has decades of experience in the fields of cyber forensics, cybercrime, national security, cyber risk, regulatory compliance and stress testing, cyber geopolitics, and cyber insurance. He is Principal, MacDonnell Ulsch Cyber Advisory LLC, Guest Lecturer on Cyber Warfare, US Military Academy at West Point.

He provides executive cybersecurity risk management advisory and strategic research services to clients on cyber warfare, cyber espionage, cyber insurance, and defensive measures to reduce the impact of cyber attacks from hostile nation-states and transnational organized crime. The Firm’s clients include law firms with cybersecurity and privacy practices, Artificial Intelligence and cyber security companies, as well as Fortune companies.

Ulsch

As a consultant, he served as Chief Executive Officer at Cyber 20/20 Inc., a technology company specializing in Machine Learning and Deep Learning enabled cyber threat hunting. Cyber 20/20 provides advanced Artificial Intelligence cyber threat hunting capabilities to the US military and US national security organizations, and to the commercial sector.

Previously, he was Senior Managing Director of Cybercrime and Cyber Insurance at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and was the Chief Executive Officer at ZeroPoint Risk Research LLC. He has conducted cyber investigations in 70 countries and was the past co-chair of the American Bar Association Privacy Committee.

These four people are big shots in the US. 

And, the Chairman of Cyber India is former Chattisgarh Governor Shekhar Dutt. He was Defence Secretary for one year while A K Antony was the Defence Minister. Prior to that, he was Joint Secretary of the Department of Defence Production. In July 2007, Dutt retired as Defence Secretary and was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor for a two-year term. On 23 January 2010, he assumed the office of the Governor of Chhattisgarh, the post to which he served till his resignation on 18 June 2014. Antony was Defence Minister during 2006-2014.

Executive Director of the firm, Vishal Verma is a Senior General Partner at Edgewood Ventures, LLC. and their group companies. Edgewood is an investment fund focusing on the United States and India. Another team member Srinivas Moramchetty has close to 2 decades of experience in Information Technology and IT Regulatory Compliance and holds a Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Shekhar Dutt

Cyber India was known as a start-up ventured by Anil Antony. The company, according to its site, is a platform for some of the pioneering organizations and individuals working in the field of cybersecurity solutions, collaborating with a common mission of keeping our digital landscape secure. Cyber India team provides strategic insights, technological solutions, training and educational programs, and policy solutions, and acts as a knowledge resource to private and public sector organizations including the defence sector, with the primary motive of enhancing our cyber readiness and resilience at any level – be it local, regional, or national.

So, according to them, they act as a knowledge resource to even the defence sector. 

I am not casting doubts here that they are able to provide defence solutions, because A K Antony was the Defence Minister or Anil Antony came into contact with Wesley Clark, the NATO Commander through the defence channel. I am not alleging that Indian defence data leaked through Cyber India to the US.

But Anil Antony and his father A K Antony should answer the nation, why they are in the company of US defence personnel. And why Anil’s name has been withdrawn (maybe temporarily) as executive director.

I hope leaders like Shashi Tharoor will train their guns against Cyber India. Data is not only important, but they are also sacrosanct.

© Ramachandran 

Great Works Written in Lock Down

Lock Down brings to mind great works written in jail.

Prison literature is a fully formed genre. While locked up many people find the reflexive outlet of writing a way to pass the monotony. Others find that they feel they must write to express some wrong, either against themselves or others. While imprisonment has been the cause of great works, such as The Gulag Archipelago of Solzhenitsyn, this list will focus on those works actually composed within prisons or jails.

1. Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy

“While I was thus mutely pondering within myself, and recording my sorrowful complainings with my pen, it seemed to me that there appeared above my head a woman of a countenance exceeding venerable…”

When it comes to literary works composed in prison there is no choice but The Consolation of Philosophy for the first place, to my mind at least. Ever since it was published the work has been influential. Translated from Latin into English by King Alfred, Chaucer and Queen Elizabeth I, the book serves as a warning to those in power. Boethius was at the pinnacle of power in Rome after the collapse of the Western Empire. Unfortunately he fell foul of Theodoric the Great and was imprisoned. This sudden change in fortune is what prompted Boethius to write this philosophical dialogue between himself and the Goddess Philosophy. Boethius feels aggrieved that he has had everything taken away from him. Philosophy leads him by questioning to consider whether anything outside of himself was ever truly his to begin with. I’ll admit not everyone finds Philosophy’s words all that consolatory but it remains a foundational text for Western civilization.

2. Le Morte d’Arthur: Thomas Malory

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is right wise King born of all England.”

England has a rich history of Arthurian mythology which has inspired writers for hundreds of years. While imprisoned Thomas Malory wrote, using French sources, the most famous version of Arthurian legend. We are not entirely sure of the biography of Malory, there are several competing candidates for the identity of the author, but we know from the work itself that it was composed in prison. Le Morte d’Arthur has given the world some of the best known images of Arthur, such as the pulling of the sword from the stone and the Lady of the Lake, her arm covered in shimmering samite.

3. Prison Epistles: Paul

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Paul was the first, and most influential, Christian theologian. He started out as a persecutor of Christians but, after an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul became one of the most vocal supporters of Christianity. His letters proved so important to Christian theology that they were incorporated into the canon of the New Testament. While Paul was spreading faith in Jesus as the messiah he caused much consternation. After a confrontation in Jerusalem Paul was arrested and held in prison. Here he wrote several important letters to Christian communities – The Colossians, the Ephesians, the Philpians and one letter to Philemon. There is some scholarly debate over whether Ephesians and Colossians are genuine Pauline epistles but are still held by most Christians as part of the canon. Paul’s letters were later closely read by Martin Luther and Pauline theology was a major driving force behind the Catholic/Protestant schism.

4. Letter from Birmingham Jail: Martin Luther King Jr

“My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas…”

We can be glad that King did pause to answer his critics because the letter he wrote from jail, where he was held for protesting without a permit, is a ringing vindication of the rights of all people. Bonhoeffer, as a profound theologian, can sometimes speak in terms whose meaning eludes us. This letter talks to everyone; Christian or not. King’s letter was written in response to eight local clergymen who published a letter, A Call for Unity, which called for African-Americans to press their case for equal rights through the courts and not by demonstrations. Dr King responds calmly and, in a fairly brief space, sets out all the reasons that it is impossible for a man of conscience to allow injustice to continue. This is the best document for understanding the greatness of King’s leadership. If I were subjugated by such injustice would I be able to meet it with such reason, determination, and forgiveness? But it is not just a call to those suffering discrimination personally, we must all be responsible for guaranteeing the rights of others.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

5. Letters and papers from prison: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. The Christian is called to sympathy and action, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.”

Bonhoeffer had the many chances to lead an easy life. He was born into middle-class comfort in 1906 Germany. He might have followed his father in medicine or pursued music. Instead Bonhoeffer studied theology and did pastoral work in Harlem to become a pastor. When the Nazis took political power they also forced cooperative into positions of power. Bonhoeffer and other liberal churchmen form their own communion. He had many chances to move abroad and avoid persecution but, after intense internal debate, he chose to be in Germany for the duration of the war. Bonhoeffer was arrested in 1943 and held until just 23 days before the end of the war, when he was hanged. During his imprisonment Bonhoeffer wrote widely and this collection of his letter and papers contains much that is worth studying even if the finer details of Christian theology are not your cup of tea.

6. The Travels of Marco Polo: Rustichello de Pisa

Marco Polo left Italy with his father and uncle in 1271 and returned in 1295. In those years of travel Polo traveled to the then poorly understood Far East. On Polo’s return to Italy he was captured by the Genoese and held captive. While in prison he related his adventures to fellow prisoner Rusticello de Pisa. Rustichello wrote down what he heard and soon copies of the tale spread throughout Europe. For centuries the Travels of Marco Polo were the best information the West had about China. While Polo’s account can be questioned in some aspects of veracity it has certainly proved influential. Contact with China had existed (certainly in trade in the days of ancient Rome) before Polo but with the dissemination of his book fascination with the ‘exotic East’ was born. Other Europeans had travelled to China before Polo but none left as detailed an account, perhaps a jail term to write would have secured them a place on this list.

7. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: Ludwig Wittgenstein

“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in Silence.”

It is tempting to do just that with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophical works of the 20th century, and so is well deserving of a place on this list. It is also undoubtedly a work which requires multiple readings to start to come to grips with. Wittgenstein started makes notes for the Tractatus while a soldier in the First World War. He completed it while held prisoner by the Allies at the end of the war. Part of the difficulty in reading the Tractatus is Wittgenstein’s style; he uses short declarations and sub-clauses to state his views, with very little in the way of argument.

8. The History of the World: Walter Raleigh

“Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his teeth.”

Raleigh, we may take it from the statement above, would not be welcomed by academic historians today but his unfinished history of the world is a masterpiece. Raleigh traces the history of the world from creation to the third Macedonian war in 168BC. The book serves to show how again how a man’s mind, though his body is held captive, can travel over time and space. Raleigh never finished his history though he was released, and was later beheaded. His history includes this meditation on death.

“O eloquent, just and mighty death… thou hast drawn together all the far stretching greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words Hic Jacet [Here Lies].”

9. De Profundis: Oscar Wilde

While Lovelace found love set him free it was, for Wilde, love which led to confinement. After a serious of trials relating to his relationships with Lord Alfred Douglas and other men Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labor for gross indecency. While held in prison in Reading Wilde composed a long letter to Douglas which was later published posthumously as De Profundis. The work starts with an account of Wilde and Douglas’ relationship and how damaging it has been to Wilde. The tone is not accusatory but self-revelatory. The letter then turns towards the realizations that prison has forced on Wilde. Wilde ends with his plans for the future for, though we know his life would be cut short, he has learned-

“I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.”

10. To Althea, from prison: Richard Lovelace

“Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;”

These are the much quoted first lines of the final stanza of Richard Lovelace’s poem ‘To Althea, from prison.’ Richard Lovelace was one of the dashing young cavalier’s of the English civil war and is classed with the metaphysical poets. Sent to prison for presenting a royalist petition in support of pro-royalist bishops he used the time to compose this, his most famous poem. Written to, a possibly fictional, lover the poem expresses a theme common to much of the literature composed in jail; you cannot imprison the human mind. Despite the walls around him he can imagine his beloved and so he ends the poem with the lines-

“If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.”

11. Gita Rahasya: Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Shrimadh Bhagvad Gita Rahasya, popularly also known as Gita Rahasya or Karmayog Shashtra, is a 1915 Marathi language book authored by Indian social reformer and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak while he was in prison at Mandalay, Burma. It is the analysis of Karma yoga which finds its source in the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred book for Hindus. According to him, the real message behind the Mahabharata’s Gita is to act or perform, which is covered in the initial parts rather than renounce, which is covered in the later parts of the epic Gita. He took the Mimamsa rule of interpretation as the basis of building up his thesis.

This book consists of two parts. The first part is the philosophical exposition and the second part consists of the Gita, its translation and the commentary.

The book was written by Tilak in pencil with his own handwriting while being imprisoned at the Mandalay jail from 1908 to 1914. The more-than-400 pages of script was written in less than four months and is hence in itself considered as “remarkable achievement”. Although the writing was completed in the early years of his term, the book was only published in 1915, when he returned to Poona. He defended the ethical obligation to the active principle or action, even violent action including killing, as long as that was selfless and without personal interest or motive.

12. Paradise Lost Translation: Milovan Djilas

Yugoslavian political prisoner Milovan Djilas translated Paradise Lost into Serbo-Croatian in the 1960s while he was imprisoned, writing the epic out on toilet paper with a pencil, and smuggling it out of prison.  

Three hundred and fifty years after it was first published, John Milton’s epic revolutionary poem about the fall of man, Paradise Lost, continues to find relevance around the world, with research revealing that new translations in the last 30 years outnumber the previous three centuries’ output combined 

 First published in 1667, the blank verse Paradise Lost tells “of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste / Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden.” Milton’s Satan is cast out from heaven with his rebel angels, “Hurld headlong flaming from th’ Ethereal Skie / With hideous ruine and combustion down / To bottomless perdition, there to dwell / In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire”. He goes on to tempt Adam and Eve, and to bring about their expulsion from Eden.