The Wonder that was India!

It is a long time since I met you all in my blog. The last blog was posted in June 2024, some five months back. But my videos on Apocalypse were running till the end of August 2024 and it was great to connect with you all through that series. So, it is only two months and a few days since my inactivity!

Monsoon seasons are just getting over, with the South West monsoon having retreated by the middle of October, and the North East monsoon starting also in the middle of October and running till the end of that month, may be will stay active till December end. Can you imagine these same monsoons, known as Trade winds, took ancient Indians to far flung nations, to enrich themselves and their country? That is what they did.[1] Knowing the direction of the monsoon wind and the beginning and end of each these two, meant they could manure successfully, to their advantage, these biannual seasonal winds.

And where did they go? In the winter winds, they sailed from the west coast of India, Gujarat, and the southern peninsula, to the east coast of Africa to reach Ethiopia. Thereafter they could take the northern Persian Gulf to Iran and Mesopotamia or the southern path through Aden via Red Sea to Egypt. Then they took the summer monsoon to return home in August. Trip one way took just 45 days at the most!

It would surprise us Indians to know that Indian merchants had established colonies in 2300 BC in today’s Iraq, of Sumerian civilization. Etched carnelian beads from Gujarat have been dug up from the tombs of kings of Ur – a place from where Abraham, the father of Jews, hailed, which he left to journey over to Canaan. Items from Indus Valley Civilization have been found here in the second millennium. Indian spices like cinnamon, pepper, diamonds, beads, silks, have been found in Egypt in 1213 BC, and Greek islands. To fight in the Roman arenas, they imported tigers, leopards, panthers and even rhinoceros from India via Red Sea. Other luxury items imported by the Roman Empire from India were, diamonds, rubies, pearls, ebony, teak, amethysts, onyx, sandal wood, red coral, elephant tusks, tortoise shells, Indian cotton, Chinese silk, etc. Also carved furniture, ivory mirrors, and boxes. An Indian ivory figurine, a dancer wearing anklets was popular abroad and was found amidst the ruins of Pompey! Tamil and Sanskrit words for many spices had become familiar in the West. The word pepper came from Tamil pipali and ginger from Tamil singabera.

Ship building was a great industry within India, in Gujarat and in the south, where strong ocean-going sturdy boats or ships were built. These could carry 1000 passengers and up to 3000 vats or amphorae, and travel via Red Sea and return. This flourishing western trade made Pliny the Elder of the first century Rome, described India as “the sink of the world’s precious metals,” that is, gold and silver, up to 55 million sesterces annually. Once the Roman conquest of Egypt was made by the 1^st century BC, the trade underwent a sixfold increase. Greek geographer Strabo writes that from Ethiopia and northern most Nile, some 120 vessels sailed to and from India every year. Rome also collected tax on the incoming trading vessels; it was so profitable that it covered one third of the entire revenue of the Roman Empire!

Roman coins keep surfacing from south India in hoards! In Kottayam in Kerala, a large brass bowl containing 8000 gold aurei, Roman coins were unearthed recently. Ancient Tamil ports of Arikamedu, Poduke, in today’s Tamil Nadu, have yielded artifacts from Roman, Egyptian, Italian, France, and Spain. Near these ports, Roman settlements were found, and Roman gold coin hoards have been dug up from here.  

With the fall of Western Roman Empire in 5^th century AD, the trade declined, more so with the constant wars between Persia and Byzantium in the 6^th century AD. With this the Indian merchants shifted their focus and overseas trade to the east, to “Suvarnabhumi,” the Land of Gold, comprising today’s Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, mainly South-east Asia. Indian sailors, especially from the southern tip of India, sailed every eastward monsoon, carrying beads, textiles, metal goods, and other Indian manufactures and exchanged these with spices, gold, camphor, resin and other raw materials from this region. By the 5^th century, a direct route from southern India through Straits of Malacca, went straight up to China. Bay of Bengal became a single cultural and geographical area within the Indosphere, uniting countries on both its sides.

As Indian influence and culture spread in all these areas, Indian merchants brought with them skilled artisans from today’s Tamil Nadu, to work in these areas, and the gold they bought in Sumatra, Borneo, Malay peninsula and Thailand. From Bengal also these vessels plied. At a temple site in Thailand, archaeologists have found goldsmith’s touchstone etched in Tamil inscription in the 1^st century AD. Indian style jewelry have been found here in the 3^rd century BC itself. Suvarnabhumi was full of gold and Indian artisans took full advantage of it, by staying there and working on these. Archaeologist have dug out plenty of golden ornaments from this area of Mekong River delta. It was really a land of gold! Along with trade and artisans, Indian language, art, and architecture also got exported to South-east Asia. Sanskrit, Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana spread to these places. It became a part of Indosphere.

Buddhism spread to Sri Lanka and South-east Asia through the same route, travelling up to China. Mauryan Emperor Ashoka with his capital in north India, Pataliputra, modern Patna in the State of Bihar, converted to Buddhism, repenting the lives lost in his war against Kalinga and his conquest of the region, in 250 BC. He made maximum efforts to spread Buddhism across the world. His conversion to Buddhism was as dramatic as the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the 4^th century AD. It changed the course of history.  Ashoka sent his own son Mahindra and daughter, as missionaries to the Raja of Sri Lanka with some relics. The Raja was converted and donated a park for the monks of the Sangha to build a great monastery.

Buddhism reached northwards to Afghanistan and Tibet and then to China. From China it spread further eastward to Indo-China, Korea and Japan, by 6^th century AD. South-east Asia became predominantly Hindu-worshippers, but Buddhism made inroads and today we see the population here are mainly Buddhists. What Buddhism lost in its own place of birth, India, she made good in other places, across South -east Asia, China, Indo-China and Japan. It is interesting to note that having driven away Buddhism from its land of birth, riding on the wave of Hindu revival under Shankaracharya in the 8^th century AD, India is now inviting Buddhism back, may be to reap the potential of Tourism.

The largest Hindu temple in the world to day is not in India, but in Cambodia, the Angkor Wat, a temple devoted to Hindu god Vishnu. The largest Buddhist complex is in Java at Borobudur. This cultural hegemony or soft power of India over its neighbors stayed till 12^th and 13^th centuries AD. This was achieved, we must remember, not by sword, as with the spread of Islam over the world in the 6^th and 7^th centuries onwards. It was not through colonialism or imperialism as with the spread of Western powers, with the help of gunpowder and oppression and fleecing the countries of their wealth and suppressing their culture. It was done through peaceful means, a rich cultural exchange between regimes and countries which were equal to each other.   

India discovered the use of numbers as we see today and the use of zero at the end, making it possible for us to calculate in an easy manner, the decimal system. It passed on to the Islamic Abbasid empire in Baghdad, by the Arab merchants in 8^th century AD, and spread all over the Western world. The Roman numerals being used by the West till then was very cumbersome. The Sanskrit texts from Indian mathematicians like Aryabhata (550 AD) were translated in Arab first and then into the European languages.

But what happened to all these intelligence and advance in trading methods and astronomy and mathematics and Sanskrit texts and the influence of the south Indian temples and so on? How did they lose their flavor? Research shows that the Mongol invasion of the 13^th century wrecked the traditional trade routes and they began to break down. A new trade network through Central Asian land became paramount, later to be called the Silk Roads, from China up to Mediterranean. This is what enabled Marco Polo to travel from Venice, Italy, up to Mongolian Emperor, Kublai khan’s regime in China in 1271 AD. Inside India, Muslim conquests from 8^th century onwards destroyed the peaceful pursuit of art and literature and ancient wisdom. Temples were demolished and mosques were built on them. Sanskrit lost its fame, and Persian became the court language in Delhi. This will last well into the East India Company’s rule, and only change into English, with the crown of England taking over the rule in 1857 AD. Next two hundred years or so, the British did terrible damage to the culture, drained off the wealth of India and left us as a Third World Country.

What was the reason that we let all these foreigners to walk over us? There was no central governance in the country. The Mughals stabilized India during their rule and the money and wealth stayed in India, unlike during the British Raj, when money left Indian shores to the West, oiling their Industrial revolution. When Mughal rule floundered, the East India Company stepped in. There was no strong ruler to stop them or galvanize the whole of India against the foreign enemy. That is why the Constitution writers of the independent India went in for a strong unitary center, with States forming federation.

Can we undo the past damages and rise as one India to claim our place in the world? Can we take back our lost position as the world’s most industrious, intelligent and manufacturing people? Possible, if only we can unite India and not divide India.  

God bless India and Indian people.  

---

[1] Read “The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, by William Dalrymple, 2024; a very interesting read!

Ruins of Ephesus

Ruins of Ephesus

It is a long, long, time since I wrote a blog! But today I thought I must sit and type it out, after a trip to Turkey and a visit to Ephesus – good reasons! Turkey is a culturally and historically important place, for Istanbul, its capital was Constantinople, the capital of Byzantine Empire for 1000 years. A city established by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in AD 330, it became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which stood as the important center of Christendom, until 1453 AD when it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who renamed it as Istanbul. It is a pity that some people think of the trip to Turkey only as fun and for enjoyment, missing the historical and cultural importance of the place, and the impact it had in shaping world history.  

Now to Ephesus we turn! This is the renowned city of old in Asia Minor, which under the Roman Empire was under the rule of a Proconsul. But the city has a history dating back to 1400 BC, and more, for a Mycenean tomb was found during excavations. In 1860 statues of Artemis dating back to BC 3000 were excavated, which are of the Hittite period, when the place was called Apassa. It was a harbor city, being situated near the mouth of the river Cayster, where it joins the Aegean Sea. Today it is silted up and the old harbor lies six kms from the sea, and lies in ruins near a town called Selcuk.  

In 550 BC Ephesus was conquered by Croesus of Lydia, who rebuilt the temple of Artemis there and it became the wonder of the ancient world. Artemis was the Greek goddess of fertility, called Diana by the Romans. This is the place where Paul had come in AD 53, and proclaimed the gospel, also preaching that idols are not gods. This stirred up a riot in Ephesus for the sale of the silver shrines of Artemis went down, due to such exhortations. The mob that had collected there shouted for two hours saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” The town clerk quietened them with great effort and dismissed the crowd. All these are narrated in Acts of the Apostles 19:21-41. Later, Paul stayed in Ephesus for almost three and a half years and continued his ministry, implanting a few home churches in and around the area.

When John the Apostle came to Ephesus as an old man, after his internment in the island of Patmos, he wrote down his visions as the Apocalypse or Revelation, the last book in the Bible. He writes the seven letters of Jesus Christ to the seven churches in the then Asia Minor, which start with Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7; see my book “Revelation Made Easy,” pp.44-46). Traditionally it is held that John died here of old age. As a witness stands the St. John Basilica, on the top of the citadel in Selcuk. His grave lies here and a modest church was built over it in 4^th century AD, which was replaced by a magnificent sanctuary built by Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora (around AD 545). It is a cross-shaped basilica with six domes, the central dome sheltering the grave of John the Apostle. Today it lies in ruins, with the Islamic government and tourist guides not giving importance to this site, which was a Christian pilgrimage site at one time.    

Jesus Christ, from the cross entrusted the care of his mother, Mary to his beloved disciple John, who was standing at the foot of the cross, along with mother Mary (Gospel according to John, 19:26-27). Tradition has it that John brought Mary to Ephesus and provided for her, and that she lived and died there. When the first Christians were scattered because of persecution by the Jews and Romans in AD 37-42, John fled from Jerusalem and came to Ephesus along with Mother Mary (so writes historian Eusebius). As Mother Mary is revered in Quran as the virgin mother of the Prophet Jesus, this place has become a pilgrim center

prayer requests hanging on the walls of the building

The house of Mother Mary

for Muslims also. The small and humble house where she lived along with John the Apostle, is among dense forests on the edge of Bulbul Mountain.

After her death, a church rose in that place, but was forgotten until a physically disabled German nun, Catherine Emmerich in 1800s described the location of the place she saw in her dream. Though she herself never visited the location, the priest of Izmir College in 1891 was sent to verify these facts and he confirmed the truth of the nun’s dreams. Thereafter by 1892 the place became a pilgrimage spot, especially as Pope Paul 6 in 1867, Pope John Paul 1 in 1979, and Pope Benedictus 16 in 2006 visited the place. What impressed me at the site was the thousands of prayer requests written in papers and hung or inserted on to the walls of the house and the little chapel there. It speaks volumes of the faith of the people!

Of the ruins of Ephesus, which was a great city in the ancient world, one saw Roman baths, Agora, temple of Hadrian, Library of Celsus, the grand theatre, harbor street, the temple of Artemis and so on. There is also the ruins of a temple to Domitian, the Roman Emperor (AD 81-96). There are pits, communal ones, of toilets! There are hillside terraced houses which are covered by tin, to keep them safe from the vagaries of the weather. These have ground floor, and two floors above. Frescoes and mosaics have been discovered here, these being houses of the rich, who have embellished their homes. The ruins of the library of Celsus in Ephesus are still standing tall, a two storied building, with sculptures adorning the entrance, built mostly during the period of Emperor Hadrian. The statues here depict Wisdom, Fortune, Science and Virtue. It was built in honor of the Roman senator Tiberius Julius Celsus, the General Governor of the Province of Asia, (Ephesus was the capital of the province), who was a great lover of books, the construction started by his son and completed in AD 117.

The steps leading to the top seats in the Amphitheatre

The next important ruin is that of the Great Theater, which can accommodate some 25000 spectators, being the largest in Asia Minor. Remains of stadium and gymnasium are also seen. The Temple of Artemis is also in ruins, but must have been magnificent during the hay days, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It is the largest marble temple ever built. Pliny the Younger (who lived in in 1^st century AD) states that there were 127 marble columns, the front and the back having double colonnade. It was burnt down by one crazy man named Herostrate in 356 BC, and it never regained its glory thereafter. Today only a single, lone column stands as a witness to this once famous temple.

So, empires come and go, emperors live and die, famous cities lie in ruins, marbles and mosaics become memories, all indicating the transient nature of this world and its attractions – a good reason for us to place our eyes and attention on the eternal city that awaits every believer as promised by the Lord Jesus Christ. These ruins of a once famous city tell us exactly that!