1.
Menander I
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Menander I Soter was an Indo-Greek King of the Indo-Greek Kingdom who established a large empire in Northwestern regions of South Asia and became a patron of Buddhism. Menander was initially a king of Bactria, large numbers of Menander’s coins have been unearthed, attesting to both the flourishing commerce and duration of his realm. Menander was also a patron of Buddhism, and his conversations with the Buddhist sage Nagasena are recorded in the important Buddhist work, after his death in 130 BC, he was succeeded by his wife Agathokleia who ruled as regent for his son Strato I. Menander was born to a Greek family in a village called Kalasi adjacent to Alexandria of the Caucasus and his territories covered the eastern dominions of the divided Greek empire of Bactria and extended to India. His capital is supposed to have been Sagala, a city in northern Punjab. He subsequently travelled across northern India and visited the Maurayan capital of Patna, any plans of conquering the capital were put aside as Eucratides I king of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom began warring with the Indo-Greeks in the north-western frontier. In short, Apollodorus says that Bactriana is the ornament of Ariana as a whole, and, more than that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres, the thick mud-fortifications at Pataliputra being reached, all the provinces will be in disorder, without doubt. Ultimately, a battle will follow, with tree-like engines. The Milinda Panha gives some glimpses of his methods, His reign was long. Generous findings of coins testify to the prosperity and extension of his empire, the finds of his coins are the most numerous, precise dates of his reign, as well as his origin, remain elusive however. Menanders predecessor in Punjab seems to have been the king Apollodotus I, Menanders empire survived him in a fragmented manner until the last Greek king Strato II disappeared around 10 AD. Menander was the first Indo-Greek ruler to introduce the representation of Athena Alkidemos on his coins, probably in reference to a statue of Athena Alkidemos in Pella. This type was used by most of the later Indo-Greek kings. According to tradition, Menander embraced the Buddhist faith, as described in the Milinda Panha and he is described as constantly accompanied by a guard of 500 Greek soldiers, and two of his counsellors are named Demetrius and Antiochus. As a disputant he was hard to equal, harder still to overcome, and as in wisdom so in strength of body, swiftness, and valour there was found none equal to Milinda in all India. He was rich too, mighty in wealth and prosperity, there is however little besides this testament to indicate that Menander in fact abdicated his throne in favour of his son. Based on numismatic evidence, Sir William Tarn believes that he in fact died, leaving his wife Agathocleia to rule as a regent, until his son Strato could rule properly in his stead. Despite the success of his reign, it is clear that after his death, his loosely hung empire splintered into a variety of Indo-Greek successor kingdoms, of various size, in his right hand, he holds a branch of ivy, symbol of Dionysos
2.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
3.
Pali
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Pali is a Prakrit language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of much of the earliest extant literature of Buddhism as collected in the Pāli Canon or Tipiṭaka and is the language of Theravāda Buddhism. The word Pali is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon, Childers translates the word as series and states that the language bears the epithet in consequence of the perfection of its grammatical structure. However, modern scholarship has regarded Pali as a mix of several Prakrit languages from around the 3rd century BCE, combined together and partially Sanskritized. The closest artifacts to Pali that have found in India are Edicts of Ashoka found at Gujarat, in the west of India. There is persistent confusion as to the relation of Pāḷi to the vernacular spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, Pali, as a Middle Indo-Aryan language, is different from Sanskrit more with regard to its dialectal base than the time of its origin. A number of its morphological and lexical features show that it is not a continuation of Ṛgvedic Vedic Sanskrit. Instead it descends from one or more dialects that were, despite many similarities, however, this view is not shared by all scholars. Some, like A. C. Woolner, believe that Pali is derived from Vedic Sanskrit, Paiśācī is a largely unattested literary language of classical India that is mentioned in Prakrit and Sanskrit grammars of antiquity. e. Evidence which lends support to this interpretation is that literature in Paiśācī is fragmentary and extremely rare, many Theravada sources refer to the Pali language as Magadhan or the language of Magadha. This identification first appears in the commentaries, and may have been an attempt by Buddhists to associate more closely with the Maurya Empire. The Buddha taught in Magadha, but the four most important places in his life are all outside of it and it is likely that he taught in several closely related dialects of Middle Indo-Aryan, which had a high degree of mutual intelligibility. There is no attested dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan with all the features of Pali, Pali has some commonalities with both the western Ashokan Edicts at Girnar in Saurashtra, and the Central-Western Prakrit found in the eastern Hathigumpha inscription. In Sri Lanka, Pali is thought to have entered into a period of decline ending around the 4th or 5th century, the work of Buddhaghosa was largely responsible for its reemergence as an important scholarly language in Buddhist thought. Another scholar states that at time it was a refined. Modern scholarship has not arrived at a consensus on the issue, after the death of the Buddha, Pali may have evolved among Buddhists out of the language of the Buddha as a new artificial language. According to K. R. Norman, it is likely that the viharas in North India had separate collections of material, in the early period it is likely that no degree of translation was necessary in communicating this material to other areas. Around the time of Ashoka there had been more linguistic divergence, following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation
4.
Prakrit
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A Prakrit is any of several Middle Indo-Aryan languages. The Ardhamagadhi Prakrit, which was used extensively to write the scriptures of Jainism, is considered to be the definitive form of Prakrit. Prakrit grammarians would give the full grammar of Ardhamagadhi first, for this reason, courses teaching Prakrit are often regarded as teaching Ardhamagadhi. Other Prakrits are reported in old sources but are not attested. Alternatively, Prakrit can be taken to mean derived from an original, Prakrit is foremost a native term, designating vernaculars as opposed to Sanskrit. The Prakrits became literary languages, generally patronized by ancient Indian kings identified with the Kshatriya Varna of Hinduism, the earliest extant usage of Prakrit is the corpus of inscriptions of Emperor Aśoka. Besides this, Prakrit appears in literature in the form of Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhists, Prakrit canon of the Jains, Prakrit grammars and in lyrics, plays and epics of the times. The various Prakrit languages are associated with different patron dynasties, with different religions and different literary traditions, each Prakrit represents a distinct tradition of literature within the history of Pakistan, India and Nepal. In linguistic terms, this is used in contrast with saṃskṛta, Dramatic Prakrits were those that were devised specifically for use in dramas and other literature. Whenever dialogue was written in a Prakrit, the reader would also be provided with a Sanskrit translation, none of these Prakrits came into being as vernaculars, but some ended up being used as such when Sanskrit fell out of favor. The phrase Dramatic Prakrits often refers to three most prominent of them, Shauraseni, Magadhi Prakrit, and Maharashtri Prakrit, however, there were a slew of other less commonly used Prakrits that also fall into this category. These include Pracya, Bahliki, Daksinatya, Sakari, Candali, Sabari, Abhiri, Dramili, there was an astoundingly strict structure to the use of these different Prakrits in dramas. Maharashtri Prakrit, the ancestor of modern Marathi, is an interesting case. Maharashtri was often used for poetry and as such, diverged from proper Sanskrit grammar mainly to fit the language to the meter of different styles of poetry, the new grammar stuck, which led to the unique flexibility of vowels lengths – amongst other anomalies – in Marathi. Ardhamagadhi Dramili Elu Gandhari Magadhi Maharashtri Paisaci Shauraseni Jain Maharashtri Jain Shauraseni Apabransh National Institute of Prakrit Study, shravanabelagola, Karnataka, India Banerjee, Satya Ranjan. The Eastern School of Prakrit Grammarians, a linguistic study, deshpande, Madhav, Sanskrit & Prakrit, sociolinguistic issues. Pischel, R. Grammar of the Prakrit Languages
5.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
6.
Ionians
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The Ionians were one of the four major tribes that the Greeks considered themselves to be divided into during the ancient period, the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. The Ionian dialect was one of the three major divisions of the Hellenic world, together with the Dorian and Aeolian dialects. When referring to populations, “Ionian” defines several groups in Classical Greece, in the narrowest sense it referred to the region of Ionia in Asia Minor. Finally, in the broadest sense it could be used to all those who spoke languages of the East Greek group. The foundation myth which was current in the Classical period suggested that the Ionians were named after Ion, son of Xuthus, when the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese they expelled the Achaeans from the Argolid and Lacedaemonia. The displaced Achaeans moved into Aegilaus, in expelling the Ionians from the Aegilaus. The Ionians moved to Attica and mingled with the population of Attica. Unlike the austere and militaristic Dorians, the Ionians are renowned for their love of philosophy, art, democracy, unlike Aeolians and Dorians, Ionians appears in the languages of different civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. They are not the earliest Greeks to appear in the records, that belongs to the Danaans. The trail of the Ionians begins in the Mycenaean Greek records of Crete, a fragmentary Linear B tablet from Knossos bears the name i-ja-wo-ne, interpreted by Ventris and Chadwick as possibly the dative or nominative plural case of *Iāwones, an ethnic name. The Knossos tablets are dated to 1400 or 1200 B. C. and thus pre-date the Dorian dominance in Crete and this name also appears in a fragment of the other early poet, Hesiod, in the singular Ἰάων, iāōn. In the Book of Genesis of the English Bible, Javan is a son of Japheth, Javan is believed nearly universally by Bible scholars to represent the Ionians, that is, Javan is Ion. The Hebrew is Yāwān, plural Yəwānīm, additionally, but less surely, Japheth may be related linguistically to the Greek mythological figure Iapetus. The locations of Biblical tribal countries have been the subjects of centuries of scholarship, the Book of Isaiah gives what may be a hint by listing the nations. That have not heard my fame including Javan and immediately after the isles afar off, are the isles in apposition to Javan or the last item in the series. If the former, the expression is used of the population of the islands in the Aegean Sea. The date of the Book of Isaiah cannot precede the date of the man Isaiah, the Assyrian word, which is preceded by the country determinative, has been reconstructed as *Iaunaia. More common is ia-a-ma-nu, ia-ma-nu and ia-am-na-a-a with the country determinative, sargon II related that he took the latter from the sea like fish and that they were from the sea of the setting sun. of Yadnana
7.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
8.
Mahabharata
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The Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. The Mahābhārata is a narrative of the Kurukṣetra War and the fates of the Kaurava. It also contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four goals of life or puruṣārtha, traditionally, the authorship of the Mahābhārata is attributed to Vyāsa. There have been attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers. The oldest preserved parts of the text are thought to be not much older than around 400 BCE, the text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period. The title may be translated as the tale of the Bhārata dynasty. According to the Mahābhārata itself, the tale is extended from a version of 24,000 verses called simply Bhārata. The Mahābhārata is the longest known epic poem and has described as the longest poem ever written. Its longest version consists of over 100,000 śloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines, and long prose passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa. W. J. Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahābhārata in the context of civilization to that of the Bible, the works of Shakespeare. The epic is traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyāsa, who is also a character in the epic. Vyāsa described it as being itihāsa and he also describes the Guru-shishya parampara, which traces all great teachers and their students of the Vedic times. The first section of the Mahābhārata states that it was Gaṇeśa who wrote down the text to Vyasas dictation, the epic employs the story within a story structure, otherwise known as frametales, popular in many Indian religious and non-religious works. It is recited by the sage Vaiśampāyana, a disciple of Vyāsa, the text has been described by some early 20th-century western Indologists as unstructured and chaotic. Hermann Oldenberg supposed that the poem must once have carried an immense tragic force. Moritz Winternitz considered that only unpoetical theologists and clumsy scribes could have lumped the parts of disparate origin into an unordered whole, Research on the Mahābhārata has put an enormous effort into recognizing and dating layers within the text. Some elements of the present Mahābhārata can be traced back to Vedic times, the background to the Mahābhārata suggests the origin of the epic occurs after the very early Vedic period and before the first Indian empire was to rise in the third century B. C
9.
Kambojas
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The Kambojas were a tribe of Iron Age India, frequently mentioned in Sanskrit and Pali literature. The ancient Kambojas were probably of Indo-Iranian origin and they are, however, sometimes described as Indo-Aryans and sometimes as having both Indian and Iranian affinities. The Kambojas are also described as a clan of the Sakas. The earliest reference to the Kambojas is in the works of Pāṇini, Some sections of the Kambojas crossed the Hindu Kush and planted Kamboja colonies in Paropamisadae and as far as Rajauri. The Mahabharata locates the Kambojas on the side of the Hindu Kush as neighbors to the Daradas. Others locate the Kambojas and the Parama-Kambojas in the areas spanning Balkh, Badakshan, the mountainous region between the Oxus and Jaxartes is also suggested as the location of the ancient Kambojas. The name Kamboja may derive from, referring to the people of a known as Kum or Kam. The mountainous highlands where the Jaxartes and its confluents arise are called the highlands of the Komedes by Ptolemy, ammianus Marcellinus also names these mountains as Komedas. The Kiu-mi-to in the writings of Xuanzang have also identified with the Komudha-dvipa of the Puranic literature. Scholars have identified both the Ptolemian Tambyzoi and Ambautai with Sanskrit Kamboja, Some scholars believe that the Trans-Caucasian hydronyms and toponyms viz. The capital of Kamboja was probably Rajapura, the Kamboja Mahajanapada of Buddhist traditions refers to this branch. Kautiliyas Arthashastra and Ashokas Edict No, XIII attest that the Kambojas followed a republican constitution. One king of Kamboja was King Srindra Varmana Kamboj, the Kambojas were famous in ancient times for their excellent breed of horses and as remarkable horsemen located in the Uttarapatha or north-west. They were constituted into military sanghas and corporations to manage their political, the Kamboja cavalry offered their military services to other nations as well. There are numerous references to Kamboja having been requisitioned as cavalry troopers in ancient wars by outside nations and it was on account of their supreme position in horse culture that the ancient Kambojas were also popularly known as Ashvakas, i. e. horsemen. Their clans in the Kunar and Swat valleys have been referred to as Assakenoi and Aspasioi in classical writings, the Kambojas were famous for their horses and as cavalry-men, Aśvakas, horsemen, was the term popularly applied to them. The Aśvakas inhabited Eastern Afghanistan, and were included within the general term Kambojas. The Kambojas entered into conflict with Alexander the Great as he invaded Central Asia, the Macedonian conqueror made short shrift of the arrangements of Darius and after over-running the Achaemenid Empire he dashed into Afghanistan
10.
Antiochus II Theos
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Antiochus II Theos was a Greek king of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire who reigned from 261 to 246 BC. He succeeded his father Antiochus I Soter in the winter of 262–61 BC and he was the younger son of Antiochus I and princess Stratonice, the daughter of Demetrius Poliorcetes. Antiochus also made some attempt to get a footing in Thrace, during the war he was given the title Theos, being such to the Milesians in slaying the tyrant Timarchus. During the time Antiochus was occupied with the war against Egypt, Andragoras, his satrap in Parthia, then about 238 BC, Arsaces led a revolt of the Parthians against Andragoras, leading to the foundation of the Parthian Empire. These events would have cut off communications with India, phylarchus relays current scandals regarding his drunken banquets and liaisons with unsuitable young men. About this time, Antiochus made peace with Ptolemy II Philadelphus, Antiochus repudiated his wife Laodice I and exiled her to Ephesus. To seal the treaty, he married Ptolemys daughter Berenice and received an enormous dowry, during her stay in Ephesus, Laodice I continued numerous intrigues to become queen again. By 246 BC Antiochus had left Berenice and their infant son Antiochus, Laodice I took the occasion to poison Antiochus while her partisans at Antioch murdered Berenice and their infant son. Antiochus was buried in the Belevi Mausoleum, Laodice I then proclaimed Seleucus II as King. With his cousin-wife Laodice I, Antiochus had two sons, Seleucus II Callinicus, Antiochus Hierax and three daughters, Apama, Stratonice of Cappadocia and Laodice, wherever medical herbs suitable for humans or animals are not available, I have had them imported and grown. Wherever medical roots or fruits are not available I have had them imported, along roads I have had wells dug and trees planted for the benefit of humans and animals. Antiochus II entry in Seleucid Genealogy This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
11.
Edicts of Ashoka
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These inscriptions were dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan and represent the first tangible evidence of Buddhism. The edicts describe in detail the Ashokas view about dhamma, an earnest attempt to solve some of problems that a complex society faced, according to the edicts, the extent of Buddhist proselytism during this period reached as far as the Mediterranean, and many Buddhist monuments were created. These inscriptions proclaim Ashokas adherence to the Buddhist philosophy which, as in Hinduism is called dharma, the inscriptions show his efforts to develop the Buddhist dharma throughout his kingdom. In these inscriptions, Ashoka refers to himself as Beloved servant of the Gods The identification of Devanampiyadasi with Ashoka was confirmed by an inscription discovered in 1915 by C, beadon, a British gold-mining engineer, at Maski, a village in Raichur district of Karnataka. Another minor rock edict is found at the village Gujarra in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh and this also shows the name Ashoka in addition to usual Devanampiyadasi. The inscriptions found in the part of India were written in Magadhi Prakrit using the Brahmi script. These edicts were deciphered by British archaeologist and historian James Prinsep. The edicts were based on Ashokas ideas on administration and behaviour of people towards one another, now it is conquest by Dhamma that Beloved-Servant-of-the-Gods considers to be the best conquest. Rock Edict Nb13 The distance of 600 yojanas corresponds to the distance between the center of India and Greece, roughly 4,000 miles. Amtiyoko refers to Antiochus II Theos of Syria, who controlled the Seleucid Empire from Syria to Bactria in the east from 305 to 250 BCE, and was therefore a direct neighbor of Ashoka. Turamaye refers to Ptolemy II Philadelphos of Egypt, king of the dynasty founded by Ptolemy I, amtikini refers to Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedon. Maka refers to Magas of Cyrene, alikasudaro refers to Alexander II of Epirus. Some scholars, however, point to the presence of Buddhist communities in the Hellenistic world from that time, the pre-Christian monastic order of the Therapeutae may have drawn inspiration for its ascetic lifestyle from contact with Buddhist monasticism, although the foundation and Scriptures were Jewish. A possible Buddhist gravestone from the Ptolemaic period has been found by Flinders Petrie, decorated with a depiction of what may be Wheel of the Law and Trishula. Commenting on the presence of Buddhists in Alexandria, Robert Linssen pointed out that It was later in this place that one of the most active centres of Christianity was established. These communities therefore seem to have been significant during the reign of Ashoka. A notable mention references aspects of Greek society, there is no country, except among the Greeks, where these two groups, Brahmans and ascetics, are not found, and there is no country where people are not devoted to one or another religion. Rock Edict Nb13 Two edicts in Afghanistan have been found with Greek inscriptions, one of these being a bilingual edict in Greek language, and the king abstains from living beings, and other men and those who huntsmen and fishermen of the king have desisted from hunting. Kambojas are a people of Central Asian origin who had settled first in Arachosia and Drangiana, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas are other people under Ashoka’s rule
12.
Antialcidas
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Antialcidas Nikephoros was a Greek king of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, king of the Eucratid Dynasty, who reigned from his capital at Taxila. Bopearachchi has suggested that he ruled from ca.115 to 95 BCE in the parts of the Indo-Greek realms. Senior places him around 130 to 120 BCE and also in eastern Punjab, senior does however believe that he ruled in tandem with King Lysias. Antialcidas may have been a relative of the Bactrian king Heliocles I, several later kings may have been related to Antialcidas, Heliokles II, Amyntas, Diomedes and Hermaeus all struck coins with similar features. It states that he was a devotee of Vishnu, the Hindu god, a part of the inscriptions says, This Garuda-standard was made by order of the Bhagavata. Otherwise, Antialcidas is also known through his plentiful coins and he issued a number of bilingual Indian silver types, diademed, wearing a helmet with bulls horns or a flat kausia. He also appears throwing a spear, in that case the coin scene would represent a victory of Buddhism. According to other interpretations the elephant was the symbol of the city of Taxila, there is a bronze which features the obverse of Lysias and the reverse of Antialcidas. This was interpreted by Tarn and other scholars as though the two kings might have forged some kind of alliance, but later, a bronze with the opposite arrangement was found. The Indo-Greeks, A. K. Narain, B. R Publications The Decline of the Indo-Greeks, senior & D. MacDonald, the Hellenistic Numismatic Society Coins of Antialcidas More coins of Antialcidas Catalog of the coins of Antialcidas
13.
Heliodorus pillar
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Historically, it is the first known inscription related to the Bhagavata cult in India. The site is located 5 miles from the Buddhist stupa of Sanchi, the pillar was surmounted by a sculpture of Garuda and was apparently dedicated by Heliodorus to the god Vāsudeva in front of the temple of Vāsudeva. There are two inscriptions on the pillar, the first inscription describes in Brahmi script the situation of Heliodorus and his relationship to the Shunga Empire and the Indo-Greek Kingdom. Although not perfectly clear, the inscription seems to be referring to Heliodoros as a Bhagavata, One devoted to Bhagavan, three steps to immortality, when correctly followed, lead to heaven, control, generosity, and attention. The pillar was surmounted by a sculpture of the eagle Garuda and was dedicated by Heliodorus to Vāsudeva, called god of gods. He is the earliest recorded converts to the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism, an earlier Greco-Bactrian king Agathocles also minted coins with the image of Hindu gods circa 180 BCE. Coins minted during the period of Antialcidas depict Zeus with a lotus-tipped sceptre, in front of an elephant with a bell, surmouted by Nike holding a wreath. The coins carry the inscription BASILEOS NIKEPHOROU ANTIALKIDOU and these coins were also minted at the Pushkalavati mint and carry the same inscription in Kharoṣṭhī script. Zeus Eagle messenger and companion Aetos Dios, was considered as Zeus himself, when you were an eagle, when you picked up the boy on the slopes of Teukrian Ida with greedy gentle claw, and brought him to heaven. Based on this evidence it has suggested that Heliodorus is one of the earliest Westerner on record to convert to Vaishnavism whose evidence has survived. But some scholars, most notably A. L. Basham, certainly there were numerous others including the king who sent him as an ambassador. Bhagavata History of Hinduism Photo of the pillar with Brahmi inscription Text of the inscriptions on Heliodorus pillar Vedic archeology
14.
Vidisha
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Vidisha is a city in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, located near the state capital Bhopal. Vidishā is the headquarters of Bhelsa during the medieval period. Vidisha is located at 23. 53°N77. 82°E /23.53,77.82 and it has an average elevation of 424 metres. As of 2011 India census, Vidisha had a population of 155,959, males constitute 53. 21% of the population and females 46. 79%. Vidisha has an literacy rate of 86. 88%, higher than the national average of 74. 04%, male literacy is 92. 29%. In Vidisha, 15% of the population is under 6 years of age, near the eastern edge of the old town are the remains of a large temple of the late Paramara period known as the Bijamaṇḍal. The building was started in the second half of the 11th century. That it was never finished is shown by carved niches and unfinished architectural pieces found round the base of the temple plinth, on top of the plinth is a small mosque made using pillars, one of which has an inscription dating probably from the time of king Naravarman. It is a devotional inscription revering Carccikā, of whom he was a devotee, the miḥrāb suggests the mosque was constructed in the late 14th century. To one side of the Bijamaṇḍal is a house of the Archaeological Survey of India containing many sculptures collected in the neighbourhood. A step-well of the 7th century is in the campus and has, beside the entrance. These are the earliest Kṛṣṇa scenes in the art of central India, the town is situated east of the Betwa River, in the fork of the Betwa and Bes rivers,9 km from Sanchi. The Emperor Ashoka was the governor of Vidisha during his fathers lifetime and his Buddhist Empress Vidisha Devi who was also his first wife was brought up in Vidisha. It finds mention in Kalidasas Meghdoot, besnagar was abandoned in the 6th century. It came into prominence again as Bhelsa during the medieval period and it became famous for the temple of Sun god Bhillasvanin. It was ruled by the Later Gupta king Devagupta and Rashtrakuta king Krishna III, the name is first noted in an inscription of 878 AD by a merchant Hatiaka of Paravada community. The 12th century Tri-shashthi-shalaka-purusha-charitra mentions an image of Bhillasvamin at Vidisa, minhajuddins Tabaqat-i-Nusiri states that the temple was destroyed by Iltutmish in A D. 1233-34. In 1293, Allauddin Khilji of the Delhi Sultanate sacked the city as a general of Sultan Jalaluddin and it has been described as a very difficult loot which shows that Vidisha had an importance in the medieval era
15.
Milinda Panha
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The Milinda Panha is a Buddhist text which dates from approximately 100 BCE. It is included in the Burmese edition of the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism as a book of the Khuddaka Nikaya, however, a shorter version of it, however, is featured in Chinese Mahayana translations. It purports to record a dialogue in which the Indo-Greek king Menander I of Bactria, the earliest part of the text is believed to have been written between 100 BCE and 200 CE. The text may have initially been written in Sanskrit, however, apart from the Sri Lankan Pali edition and its derivatives and it is generally accepted by scholars that the work is composite, with additions made over some time. In support of this, it is noted that the Chinese versions of the work are substantially shorter, the oldest manuscript of the Pali text was copied in 1495 CE. Based on references within the text itself, significant sections of the text are lost, the book is included in the inscriptions of the Canon approved by the Burmese Fifth Council and the printed edition of the Sixth Council text. Rhys Davids says it is the greatest work of classical Indian prose, the work has been translated into English twice, once in 1890 by Thomas William Rhys Davids and once in 1969 by Isaline Blew Horner. Horner, 1963-4,2 volumes, Pali Text Society, Bristol Abridgements include, Pesala, Bhikkhu, The Debate of King Milinda, the Questions of King Milinda, An Abridgement of the Milindapanha. Kandy, Sri Lanka, Buddhist Publication Society,1993, paracanonical texts Ship of Theseus Hinüber, Oskar von. The Questions of King Milinda, translated by Thomas William Rhys Davids. at Sacred-texts. com, the Debate of King Milinda, Most Recent HTML and PDF Editions. The Debate of King Milinda, Abridged Edition, milindapañha - Selected passages in both Pali and English, translated by John Kelly Milinda Panha Sinhalese translation
16.
Astrology
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Astrology is the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial objects as a means for divining information about human affairs and terrestrial events. Throughout most of its history astrology was considered a tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology. It was present in political circles, and is mentioned in works of literature, from Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in it has largely declined, Astrology is now recognized to be pseudoscience. The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, which derives from the Greek ἀστρολογία—from ἄστρον astron, astrologia later passed into meaning star-divination with astronomia used for the scientific term. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems. Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, with roots in systems used to predict seasonal shifts. A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia, Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty. Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, Alexander the Greats conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with Chaldean wisdom, after the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe, major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer. Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and it was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. At the end of the 17th century, new concepts in astronomy. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined, Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. This was a first step towards recording the Moons influence upon tides and rivers, by the 3rd millennium BCE, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars. Scattered evidence suggests that the oldest known references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa thought to be compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE, a scroll documenting an early use of electional astrology is doubtfully ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash
17.
Yavanajataka
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The Yavanajātaka of Sphujidhvaja is an ancient text in Indian astrology. According to Pingree, it is a versification of an earlier translation into Sanskrit of a Greek text, thought to have been written around 120 BCE in Alexandria. Furthermore, traditionally Yavanesvara and Sphujidhvaja were understood as referring to the same person, the date of the Yavanajātaka according to Mak is now revised to between 4th and 6th century CE. Yavanajataka is one the earliest known Sanskrit works referencing western horoscopy and it was followed by other works of Western origin which greatly influenced Indian astrology, the Paulisa Siddhanta, and the Romaka Siddhanta. However, the earliest known Sanskrit work on horoscopy is Vedanga Jyotisha It was translated by David Pingree into English, there was a wise king named Sphujidhvaja who versified this entire, which was seen by him in the year 191, in 4,000 indravajra verses. The dates employed in the Yavanajataka are based on the Saka era, accordingly, the versification by Sphujidhvaja was made in 269 CE. The Yavanajataka contains instructions on calculating astrological charts from the time, astrology flourished in the Hellenistic world and the Yavanajataka reflects astrological techniques developed in the Greek-speaking world. Astronomical mathematical methods, such as the calculate of the horoskopos was used in the service of astrology, thirty-six are the thirds of the zodiacal signs which are called Drekanas by the Greeks. They have various clothes, forms, and colors, I will describe them all their qualities beginning with their characteristic signs. The wise say that the course of the planets is the supreme eye of the entire body of the rules of horoscopy. I shall explain it concisely according to the instruction of the Greeks, some who are students of the laws find that it is good to follow the opinion of the sage Vasistha, the best of the Greeks should consist of 165 years. 4, Otto Harrassowitz — Wiesbaden,1981 Bill M. Mak, “The ‘Oldest Indo-Greek Text in Sanskrit’ Revisited, Additional Readings from the Newly Discovered Manuscript of the Yavanajātaka”, Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 62, Mars 2014, no. 3, pp. 1101-1105 Bill M. Mak, the Last Chapter of Sphujidhvajas Yavanajātaka critically edited with notes
18.
Alexandria on the Caucasus
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Alexandria in the Caucasus was a colony of Alexander the Great. He founded the colony at an important junction of communications in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains. Note, In Classical times, the Hindu Kush were also designated as the Caucasus in parallel to their Western equivalent, the Caucasus Mountains between Europe and Asia. He had also built forts in what is nowadays Bagram in Afghanistan, at the foot of the Hindu Kush, the divinity of the city seems to have been Zeus, as suggested by coins of the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides. Alexandria of the Caucasus was one of the capitals of the Indo-Greek kings, during the reign of Menander I the city was recorded as having a thriving Buddhist community, headed by Greek monks. Some archaeological evidence concerning Alexandria of the Caucasus was gathered by Charles Masson and his findings include coins, rings, seals and other small objects. In the 1930s Roman Ghirshman, while conducting excavations near Bagram, found Egyptian and Syrian glassware, bronze statuettes, bowls and this is an indication that Alexanders conquests have opened India to imports from the west. Today the cities remains feature a rectangular tell 500 by 200 metres in area and a nearby circular citadel about 3km northeast of Bagram Airforce base
19.
Yavana
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The word Yona in Pali and the Prakrits, and the analogue Yavana in Sanskrit, are words used in Ancient India to designate Greek speakers. Yona and Yavana are transliterations of the Greek word for Ionians, * Both terms appear in ancient Sanskrit literature. Yavana appears for instance, in the Mahabharata, while Yona appears in such as the Mahavamsa. The Yona are mentioned in the Ashoka inscriptions, along with the Kambojas, as two societies where there are only nobles and slaves, the description of Greek astrology and Greek terminology in the Yavanajātaka Nativity of the Yavanas. The mention of Alexandria on the Caucasus, the city of the Yonas in the Mahavamsa and this usage was shared by many of the countries east of Greece, from the Mediterranean to Sindh, Egyptians used the word j-w-n-’. Babylonians used the word Yaman and Yamanaya, the Yavanas are mentioned in detail in Sangam literature epics such as Paṭṭiṉappālai, describing their brisk trade with the Early Cholas in the Sangam period. After Alexander the Greats invasion, the Greek settlements had existed in parts of Achaemenid Empire, northwest of India. The references to the Yonas in the early Buddhist texts may be related to the same, some of the better-known examples are those of the Edicts of Ashoka, in which the Buddhist emperor Ashoka refers to the Greek populations under his rule. Ashokas Rock Edict XIII also pairs the Yonas with the Kambojas and conveys that brahmans and śramaṇas are found everywhere in his empire except in the lands of the Yonas and the Kambojas. The Mahavamsa or Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka refers to the thera Mahārakkhita being sent to preach to the Yona country, and also to the Yona thera Dhammarakkhita and it also mentions that Pandukabhaya of Anuradhapura set aside a part of his capital city of Anuradhapura for the Yonas. Another Yona thera, Mahādhammarakkhita, is mentioned as having come from Alexandria on the Caucasus in the country of the Yonas, to be present at the building of the Ruwanwelisaya. Another example is that of the Milinda Panha, where Yonaka is used to refer to the great Indo-Greek king Menander, the Vanaparava of Mahabharata contains prophecies that Mleccha kings of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Bahlikas etc. shall rule the earth un-righteously in Kaliyuga. There are important references to the warring Mleccha hordes of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, the time frame for these struggles is 2nd century BCE downwards. The thick mud-fortifications at Pataliputra being reached, all the provinces will be in disorder, ultimately, a great battle will follow, with tree-like engines. The Yavanas will command, the Kings will disappear, the Yavanas, intoxicated with fighting, will not stay in Madhadesa, there will be undoubtedly a civil war among them, arising in their own country, there will be a terrible and ferocious war. The Anushasanaparava of the Mahabharata affirms that the country of Majjhimadesa was invaded the Yavanas, the Yona invasion of Majjhimadesa was jointly carried out by the Yonas and the Kambojas. Majjhimadesa here means the middle of Greater India which then included Afghanistan, Pakistan, on the 110 BCE Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha in Central India, the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas, who had sent an ambassador to the court of the Shunga emperor Bhagabhadra, was also qualified as Yona. The Mahavamsa also attests Yona settlement in Anuradhapura in ancient Sri Lanka, Buddhist texts like Sumangala Vilasini class the language of the Yavanas with the Milakkhabhasa i. e. impure language
20.
Greeks
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The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, Sicily, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world, many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor, other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greeks speak the Greek language, which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic. They are part of a group of ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an archetypal diaspora people. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor. Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus, the Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as an era of heroes, closeness of the gods. The Homeric Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past, as part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC, the works of Homer and Hesiod were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period, the classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras, the Peloponnesian War, the large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies, left both greatly weakened. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia, two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers. The Hellenistic civilization was the period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death. This Hellenistic age, so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures and this age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi, Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian peoples and this led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation
21.
Indo-Greek Kingdom
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The kingdom was founded when the Graeco-Bactrian king Demetrius invaded the subcontinent early in the 2nd century BC. The Greeks in South Asia were eventually divided from the Graeco-Bactrians centered in Bactria, but the Greeks failed to establish united rule in present-day north-western South Asia. The most famous Indo-Greek ruler was Menander and he had his capital at Sakala in the Punjab. The expression Indo-Greek Kingdom loosely describes a number of various polities, traditionally associated with a number of regional capitals like Taxila, Pushkalavati. Euthydemus I was, according to Polybius a Magnesian Greek and his son, Demetrius, founder of the Indo-Greek kingdom, was therefore of Greek descent from his father at minimum. A marriage treaty was arranged for Demetrius with a daughter of Antiochus III the Great, the ethnicity of later Indo-Greek rulers is less clear. The diffusion of Indo-Greek culture had consequences which are still felt today, after 321 BC Eudemus toppled Taxiles, until he left India in 316 BC. To the south, another general also ruled over the Greek colonies of the Indus, Peithon, son of Agenor, in 305 BC, Seleucus I led an army to the Indus, where he encountered Chandragupta. The confrontation ended with a treaty, and an intermarriage agreement. But Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, also several Greeks, such as the historian Megasthenes, followed by Deimachus and Dionysius, were sent to reside at the Mauryan court. Presents continued to be exchanged between the two rulers, on these occasions, Greek populations apparently remained in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent under Mauryan rule. It is also thought that Greeks contributed to the work of the Pillars of Ashoka. 1 That is the Caucasus Indicus or Paropamisus, mod, Alexander had also established several colonies in neighbouring Bactria, such as Alexandria on the Oxus and Alexandria of the Caucasus. After Alexanders death in 323 BC, Bactria came under the control of Seleucus I Nicator, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was founded when Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC. The preserved ancient sources are contradictory and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a chronology and a low chronology for Diodotos’ secession. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus reign. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire
22.
Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
23.
Sindh
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Sindh /sɪnd/ is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, in the southeast of the country. Historically home to the Sindhi people, it is locally known as the Mehran. It was formerly known as Sind until 1956, Sindh is the third largest province of Pakistan by area, and second largest province by population after Punjab. Sindh is bordered by Balochistan province to the west, and Punjab province to the north, Sindh also borders the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to the east, and Arabian Sea to the south. Sindhs climate is noted for hot summers and mild winters, the provincial capital of Sindh is Pakistans largest city and financial hub, Karachi. Sindh has Pakistans second largest economy with Karachi being its capital hosts the headquarters of several multinational banks. Sindh is home to a portion of Pakistans industrial sector. The remainder of Sindh has an agriculture based economy, and produces fruit, food consumer items, Sindh is also the centre of Pakistans pharmaceutical industry. Sindh is known for its culture which is strongly influenced by Sufism. Several important Sufi shrines are located throughout the province which attract millions of annual devotees, Sindh also has Pakistans highest percentage of Hindu residents. Karachi and other centres of Sindh have seen ethnic tensions between the native Sindhis and the Muhajirs boil over into violence on several occasions. Sindh is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites - the Historical Monuments at Makli, and the Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro, the word Sindh is derived from the Sanskrit language and is adapted from the Sanskrit term Sindhu which literally means river hence a reference to Indus River. Spelling of its name as Sind was discontinued in 1988 by an amendment passed in Sindh Assembly. The Greeks who conquered Sindh in 325 BC under the command of Alexander the Great rendered it as Indós, the ancient Iranians referred to everything east of the river Indus as hind from the word Sindh. When the British arrived in the 17th century in India, then ruled by the Maratha Empire, they applied the Greek version of the name Sindh to all of South Asia, calling it India. The name of Pakistan is actually an acronym in which the letter s is derived from the first letter in Sindh, Sindhs first known village settlements date as far back as 7000 BCE. Permanent settlements at Mehrgarh, currently in Balochistan, to the west expanded into Sindh and this culture blossomed over several millennia and gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization around 3000 BCE. The primitive village communities in Balochistan were still struggling against a difficult highland environment and this was one of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world
24.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
25.
Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
26.
Persian people
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The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group that make up over half the population of Iran. They share a cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the ancient Iranian population who entered modern-day Iran by the early 10th century BC. The English term Persian derives from Latin Persia, itself deriving from Greek Persís, in the Bible, it is referred to as Parás —sometimes Paras uMadai —within the books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya. Although Persis was originally one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term were adopted through Greek sources, thus, in the Western world, the term Persian came to refer to all inhabitants of the country. 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi, Dari and Azari as dialects of the Persian language, in 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta, referred to the people of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of Persians. Lady Mary Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, describes Persians, Kurds and Leks to identify themselves as descendants of the ancient Persians. On March 21,1935, the king of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking the international community to use the term Iran. However, the term Persian is still used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent. The earliest known written record attributed to the Persians is from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the inscription mentions Parsua as a tribal chiefdom in modern-day western Iran. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the Iranian population that, in the early 10th century BC. They were initially dominated by the Assyrians for much of the first three centuries after arriving in the region, however, they played a role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes, another branch of population, founded the unified empire of Media as the regions dominant cultural and political power in c.625 BC. Meanwhile, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids formed a state to the central Median power. In c.552 BC, the Achaemenids began a revolution which led to the conquest of the empire by Cyrus II in c.550 BC. They spread their influence to the rest of what is called the Iranian Plateau, at its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the creation of Pasargadae and its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, until the Parthian era, the Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, however, it did not yet have a political import
27.
Babylon
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Babylon was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in parts along its left and right banks. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c.2300 BC, the town attained independence as part of a small city-state with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Babylon grew and South Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia, the empire quickly dissolved after Hammurabis death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and then rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from c.1770 to 1670 BC and it was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the extent of its area range from 890 to 900 hectares. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings, the English Babylon comes from Greek Babylṓn, a transliteration of the Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name in the early 2nd millennium BC had been Babilli or Babilla, by the 1st millennium BC, it had changed to Babili under the influence of the folk etymology which traced it to bāb-ili. The Gate of God or Gate of El being from the Aramaic Hebrew Bab for Gate and El for God and this being similar to the Hebrew word for confusion Balal. In the Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted in the Hebrew Scriptures Book of Genesis to mean confusion, the modern English verb, to babble, or to speak meaningless words, is popularly thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain, remains of the city include, Kasr—also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. Amran Ibn Ali—the highest of the mounds at 25 meters, to the south and it is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. Homera—a reddish colored mound on the west side, most of the Hellenistic remains are here
28.
Biblical Hebrew
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The term Hebrew was not used for the language in the Bible, which was referred to as Canaanite or Judahite, but the name was used in Greek and Mishnaic Hebrew texts. Biblical Hebrew is attested from about the 10th century BCE, and persisted through and beyond the Second Temple period, Biblical Hebrew eventually developed into Mishnaic Hebrew, which was spoken until the second century CE. There is also evidence of regional dialectal variation, including differences between Biblical Hebrew as spoken in the northern Kingdom of Israel and in the southern Kingdom of Judah. Biblical Hebrew has been written with a number of different writing systems, the Hebrews adopted the Phoenician alphabet around the 12th century BCE, which developed into the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. This was retained by the Samaritans, who use the descendent Samaritan alphabet to this day, however, the Aramaic alphabet gradually displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet for the Jews, and it became the source for the modern Hebrew alphabet. All of these scripts were lacking letters to represent all of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, though these sounds are reflected in Greek and these scripts originally only indicated consonants, but certain letters, known by the Latin term matres lectionis, became increasingly used to mark vowels. In the Middle Ages, various systems of diacritics were developed to mark the vowels in Hebrew manuscripts, of these, Biblical Hebrew possessed a series of emphatic consonants whose precise articulation is disputed, likely ejective or pharyngealized. Earlier Biblical Hebrew possessed three consonants which did not have their own letters in the system, but over time they merged with other consonants. The stop consonants developed fricative allophones under the influence of Aramaic, the pharyngeal and glottal consonants underwent weakening in some regional dialects, as reflected in the modern Samaritan Hebrew reading tradition. Biblical Hebrew had a typical Semitic morphology with nonconcatenative morphology, arranging Semitic roots into patterns to form words, Biblical Hebrew distinguished two genders, three numbers. Verbs were marked for voice and mood, and had two conjugations which may have indicated aspect and/or tense, the tense or aspect of verbs was also influenced by the conjugation ו, in the so-called waw-consecutive construction. Default word order was verb–subject–object, and verbs inflected for the number, gender, pronominal suffixes could be appended to verbs or nouns, and nouns had special construct states for use in possessive constructions. The earliest written sources refer to Biblical Hebrew by the name of the land in which it was spoken, the Hebrew Bible also shows that the language was called יהודית Judaean, Judahite. In the Hellenistic period Greek writings use the names Hebraios, Hebraïsti, Jews also began referring to Hebrew as לשון הקדש the Holy Tongue in Mishnaic Hebrew. The term Classical Hebrew may include all pre-medieval dialects of Hebrew, including Mishnaic Hebrew, the term Biblical Hebrew refers to pre-Mishnaic dialects. The archeological record for the prehistory of Biblical Hebrew is far more complete than the record of Biblical Hebrew itself, Early Northwest Semitic materials are attested from 2350 BCE to 1200 BCE, the end of the Bronze Age. Hebrew developed during the half of the second millennium BCE between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, an area known as Canaan. The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE
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Javan
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Javan was the fourth son of Noahs son Japheth according to the Table of Nations in the Hebrew Bible. Flavius Josephus states the belief that this individual was the ancestor of the Greek people. Also serving as the Hebrew name for Greece or Greeks in general, יָוָן Yavan or Yāwān has long been considered cognate with the name of the eastern Greeks, the Greek race has been known by cognate names throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East and beyond—even in Sanskrit. In Greek mythology, the forefather of the Ionians is similarly called Ion. Javan is also found in literature in the Book of Daniel,8, 21-22 and 11,2
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Modern Hebrew
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Modern Hebrew or Israeli Hebrew, generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew, is the standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It was revived as a language in the 19th and 20th centuries and is one of the two official languages of Israel, along with Modern Standard Arabic. Modern Hebrew is spoken by about nine people, counting native, fluent. The organization that directs the development of the Modern Hebrew language. The most common term for the language is Modern Hebrew. Most people refer to it simply as Hebrew, the term Modern Hebrew has been described as somewhat problematic as it implies unambiguous periodization from Biblical Hebrew. Rosén supported the now widely used term Israeli Hebrew on the basis that it represented the nature of Hebrew. In 2006, Israeli linguist Ghilad Zuckermann proposed the term Israeli to represent the origins of the language. Jewish contemporary sources describe Hebrew flourishing as a language in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew remained a spoken vernacular following the Babylonian captivity, Hebrew died out as a vernacular language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, which devastated the population of Judea. After the exile Hebrew became restricted to liturgical use, the revival of the Hebrew language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Modern Hebrew used Biblical Hebrew morphemes, Mishnaic spelling, and Sephardic pronunciation, idioms and calques were made from Yiddish. Ben-Yehuda used a stock of 8,000 words from the Bible and 20,000 words from rabbinical commentaries and codified and planned the new language, some words he invented, such as ḥatzilīm for eggplants and ḥashmal for electricity. Sometimes, old Hebrew words took on different meanings altogether, for example, the Hebrew word kǝvīš, which now denotes a street or a road, is actually an Aramaic adjective meaning trodden down, blazoned, rather than a common noun. It was originally used to describe a blazoned trail, for a simple comparison between the Sephardic version of Mishnaic Hebrew and the Yemenite version of the same, see Yemenite Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is classified as an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic family, although it has been influenced by non-Semitic languages, Modern Hebrew retains its Semitic character in its morphology and in much of its syntax. A minority of scholars argue that the language had been so influenced by various substrate languages that it is genealogically a hybrid with Indo-European. These theories have not been met with acceptance, and Modern Hebrew continues to be considered a Semitic language by most experts
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Turkish language
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Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
32.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
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Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
34.
Old Persian
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The Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages. Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets. This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a language in use for practical recording. As a written language, Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions and it is an Iranian language and as such a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscriptions. Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages which is attested in original texts, the oldest date of use of Old Persian as a spoken language is not precisely known. Their language, Old Persian, became the language of the Achaemenid kings. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash are first mentioned in the area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III. The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. Old Persian belongs to the Iranian language family which is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, the common ancestors of Indo-Iranians came from Central Asia sometime in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. The former are the languages in that group which have left written original texts while Median is known mostly from loanwords in Old Persian. Old Persian subsequently evolved into Middle Persian, which is in turn the ancestor of New Persian. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Pashto, Old, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars and is differentiated by dialectical features, Middle Persian, also sometimes called Pahlavi, is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country. Comparison of the evolution at each stage of the shows great simplification in grammar. However, New Persian is a descendent of Middle and Old Persian. Old Persian presumably has a Median language substrate, the Median element is readily identifiable because it did not share in the developments that were peculiar to Old Persian. Median forms are only in personal or geographical names and some are typically from religious vocabulary
35.
Ionia
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Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements, never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian tribe who, in the Archaic Period, settled mainly the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea. Ionian states were identified by tradition and by their use of Eastern Greek and it was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south. The cities within the region figured large in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks, according to Greek tradition, the cities of Ionia were founded by colonists from the other side of the Aegean. Their settlement was connected with the history of the Ionic people in Attica, which asserts that the colonists were led by Neleus and Androclus, sons of Codrus. So intricate is the coastline that the voyage along its shores was estimated at four times the direct distance. A great part of area was, moreover, occupied by mountains. None of these mountains attains a height of more than 1,200 metres, the geography of Ionia placed it in a strategic position that was both advantageous and disadvantageous. Ionia was always a maritime power founded by a people who made their living by trade in peaceful times, the coast was rocky and the arable land slight. The native Luwians for the most part kept their fields further inland, the coastal cities were placed in defensible positions on islands or headlands situated so as to control inland routes up the rift valleys. The people of those valleys were of different ethnicity, the populations of the cities came from many civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean. Ancient demographics are available only from literary sources, Herodotus states that in Asia the Ionians kept the division into twelve cities that had prevailed in Ionian lands of the north Peloponnese, their former homeland, which became Achaea after they left. These Asian cities were Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Erythrae, Clazomenae and Phocaea, together with Samos and Chios. Smyrna, originally an Aeolic colony, was occupied by Ionians from Colophon. These cities do not match those of Achaea, moreover, the Achaea of Herodotus time spoke Doric, but in Homer it is portrayed as being in the kingdom of Mycenae, which most likely spoke Mycenaean Greek, which is not Doric. If the Ionians came from Achaea, they departed during or after the change from East Greek to West Greek there, Mycenaean continued to evolve in the mountainous region of Arcadia. Miletus and some other cities founded earlier by non-Greeks received populations of Mycenaean Greeks probably under the name of Achaeans, the tradition of Ionian colonizers from Achaea suggests that they may have been known by both names even then. In the Indian historic literary texts, the Ionians are referred to as yavanar or yona, in modern Turkish, the people of that region were called yunan and the country that is now Greece is known as Yunanistan
36.
Punjab
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The Punjab, also spelled Panjab, panj-āb, land of five rivers, is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of South Asia, comprising areas of eastern Pakistan and northern India. Not being a unit, the extent of the region is the subject of debate. The foreign invaders mainly targeted the most productive region of the Punjab known as the Majha region. The people of the Punjab today are called Punjabis and their language is called Punjabi. The main religions of the Punjab region are Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism, other religious groups are Christianity, Jainism and Buddhism. The name of the region is a compound of two Persian words Panj and āb and was introduced to the region by the Turko-Persian conquerors of India, Punjab literally means Five Waters referring to the rivers, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Chenab being the largest, there are two main definitions of the Punjab region, the 1947 definition and the older 1846–1849 definition. The third definition incorporates both the 1947 and the definitions but also includes northern Rajasthan on a linguistic basis. 1947 definition The 1947 definition defines the Punjab region with reference to the dissolution of British India whereby the then British Punjab Province was partitioned between India and Pakistan, in Pakistan, the region now includes the Punjab province and Islamabad Capital Territory. In India, it includes the Punjab state, Chandigarh, Haryana, Using the 1947 definition, the Punjab region borders Kashmir to the north, Sindh and Rajasthan to the south, the Pashtun region and Balochistan to the west, and the Hindi belt to the east. Accordingly, the Punjab region is diverse and stretches from the hills of the Kangra Valley to the plains. Present day maps Major cities Using the 1947 definition of the Punjab region, some of the cities of the area include Lahore, Faisalabad. Older 1846–1849 definition The older definition of the Punjab region focuses on the collapse of the Sikh Empire, According to this definition, the Punjab region incorporates, in Pakistan, Azad Kashmir including Bhimber and Mirpur and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In India the wider definition includes parts of Delhi and Jammu Division, the formation of the Himalayan Range of mountains to the east and north-east of the Punjab is the result of a collision between the north-moving Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The plates are moving together, and the Himalayas are rising by about 5 millimetres per year. The upper regions are snow-covered the whole year, Lower ranges of hills run parallel to the mountains. The Lower Himalayan Range runs from north of Rawalpindi through Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, the mountains are relatively young, and are eroding rapidly. The Indus and the five rivers of the Punjab have their sources in the range and carry loam, minerals and silt down to the rich alluvial plains
37.
Seleucid Empire
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Seleucus received Babylonia and, from there, expanded his dominions to include much of Alexanders near eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and what is now Kuwait, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan and Turkmenistan. The Seleucid Empire was a center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from Greece, Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece was abruptly halted after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army. Their attempts to defeat their old enemy Ptolemaic Egypt were frustrated by Roman demands, contemporary sources, such as a loyalist degree from Ilium, in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire and as a kingdom. Similarly, Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia and he refers to either Alexander Balas or Alexander II Zabinas as a ruler. Alexander, who conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, died young in 323 BC. Alexanders generals jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire, Ptolemy, a former general and the satrap of Egypt, was the first to challenge the new system, this led to the demise of Perdiccas. Ptolemys revolt led to a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC, Seleucus, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry and appointed first or court chiliarch received Babylonia and, from that point, continued to expand his dominions ruthlessly. Seleucus established himself in Babylon in 312 BC, the used as the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants. Following his and Lysimachus victory over Antigonus Monophthalmus at the decisive Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus took control over eastern Anatolia, in the latter area, he founded a new capital at Antioch on the Orontes, a city he named after his father. An alternative capital was established at Seleucia on the Tigris, north of Babylon, Seleucuss empire reached its greatest extent following his defeat of his erstwhile ally, Lysimachus, at Corupedion in 281 BC, after which Seleucus expanded his control to encompass western Anatolia. He hoped further to take control of Lysimachuss lands in Europe – primarily Thrace and even Macedonia itself, nevertheless, even before Seleucus death, it was difficult to assert control over the vast eastern domains of the Seleucids. Seleucus invaded the Punjab region of India in 305 BC, confronting Chandragupta Maurya and it is said that Chandragupta fielded an army of 600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants. Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and it is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucuss daughter, or a Macedonian princess, a gift from Seleucus to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture, Chandragupta sent 500 war elephants, an asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Chandragupta, Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandraguptas reign, which have been partly preserved to us through Diodorus Siculus
38.
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
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The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was – along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom – the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC. It was centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan, the expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into present-day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan from 180 BC established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 AD. Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom when he seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC, the preserved ancient sources are somewhat contradictory, and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a chronology and a low chronology for Diodotos’ secession. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus reign. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire. Diodotus, the governor of the cities of Bactria, defected and proclaimed himself king, all the other people of the Orient followed his example. Their cities were Bactra, and Darapsa, and several others, among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler. In 247 BC, the Ptolemaic empire captured the Seleucid capital, in the resulting power vacuum, the satrap of Parthia proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, declaring himself king. A decade later, he was defeated and killed by Arsaces of Parthia and this cut Bactria off from contact with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed. Euthydemus, a Magnesian Greek according to Polybius and possibly satrap of Sogdiana, overthrew the dynasty of Diodotus I around 230-220 BC, and the Iaxartes forms also the boundary between the Sogdians and the nomads. Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BC, although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius and had to retreat. Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded, in the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China. Greek influences on Chinese art have also been suggested, designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences, can be found on some early Han dynasty bronze mirrors. The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in iron, for trade is attested around that period
39.
Sangam literature
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The Sangam litterature is the ancient Tamil literature of the period in the history of ancient southern India spanning from c.300 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems in Tamil composed by 473 poets, Sangam literature is primarily secular, dealing with everyday themes in a Tamilakam context. The poems belonging to Sangam literature were composed by Tamil poets and these poems were later collected into various anthologies, edited, and with colophons added by anthologists and annotators around 1000 AD. Sangam literature fell out of memory soon thereafter, until they were rediscovered in the 19th century by scholars such as Arumuga Navalar, C. W. Thamotharampillai. Sangam literature deals with emotional and material such as love, war, governance, trade. The Indologist Kamil Zvelebil quotes A. K. Ramanujan, In their antiquity and in their contemporaneity, there is not much else in any Indian literature equal to these quiet and these poems are not just the earliest evidence of the Tamil genius. The available literature from this period was categorized and compiled in the 10th century into two categories based roughly on chronology, the categories are patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku comprising ettuthogai and the pattuppāṭṭu and patiṉeṇkīḻkaṇakku. Sangam poems falls into two categories, the field, and the outer field as described even in the first available Tamil grammar. The inner field topics refer to personal or human aspects, such as love and intimate relationships, the outer field topics discuss all other aspects of human experience such as heroism, courage, ethics, benevolence, philanthropy, social life, and customs. The division into agam and puram is not rigid, but depends upon the interpretation used in a specific context, Sangam literature illustrates the thematic classification scheme first described in the Tolkāppiyam. The classification ties the emotions involved in poetry to a specific landscape. These are, kuṟiñci, mountainous regions, mullai, forests, marutam, agricultural land, neytal coastal regions, in addition to the landscape based tiṇais, kaikkiLai and perunthinai are used for unsolicited love and unsuited love respectively. According to the compilers of the Sangam works such as Nakkeeran, the Tamil Sangams were academies, the legends claim that the Pandyan dynasty of the mythical cities of South Madurai, Kapatapuram, and Madurai, patronized the three Sangams. The word Sangam is probably of Indo-Aryan origin, coming from sangha, noted historians like Kamil Zvelebil have stressed that the use of Sangam literature to describe this corpus of literature is a misnomer and Classical literature should be used instead. They painstakingly collected and catalogued numerous manuscripts in various stages of deterioration, Navalar and Pillai hailed from Jaffna. Navalar brought the first Sangam text into print, this was the Thirumurukaattuppadai of Pattupattu, Pillai brought out the first of the Eight Anthologies of the Sangam classics, the Kaliththokai, in 1887. Swaminathaiyar published his first print of Paththupattu in 1889 and they published more than 100 works in all, including minor poems. J V Chellaiah of Jaffna College did the translation of the Pattuppāṭṭu in English in 1945
40.
Early Cholas
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The Early Cholas of the pre and post Sangam period were one of the three main kingdoms of the ancient Tamil country. Their early capitals were Urayur and Kaveripattinam, along with Pandyas and Cheras, Chola history goes back to the period where the history is covered with the mists of time. Although we hear the exploits of a number of Cholas of this period through Sangam literature and later folklore, ancient Tamil Nadu contained three monarchical states, headed by kings called Vendhar and several tribal chieftaincies, headed by the chiefs called by the general denomination Vel or Velir. Still lower at the level there were clan chiefs called kizhar or mannar. The Tamil area had an independent existence outside the control of these northern empires, the Tamil kings and chiefs were always in conflict with each other mostly over property. The royal courts were mostly places of social gathering rather than places of dispensation of authority, the king of Kalinga, Kharavela, who ruled around 150 BCE, mentioned in the famous Hathigumpha inscription of the confederacy of the Tamil kingdoms that had existed for over 100 years. Karikala Chola was the most famous early Chola and he is mentioned in a number of poems in the Tamil Sangam literature. Another source for the information of the early Cholas is the early Tamil literature of the Sangam Period. There are also brief notices on the Chola country and its towns, ports, Periplus is a work by an anonymous Alexandrian merchant, written in the time of Domitian and contains precious little information of the Chola country. Writing half a century later, the geographer Ptolemy has more to us about the Chola country, its port. Mahavamsa, a Buddhist text, also recounts a number of conflicts between the inhabitants of Ceylon and the Tamil immigrants from Chola Country, the inscriptions of the Medieval Cholas are replete with legends about the mythical Early Chola kings. The Cholas were looked upon as descended from the sun and these myths speak of the Chola king Kantaman, supposed contemporary of the sage Agastya, whose devotion brought the river Kavery into existence. There is also the story of the king Manu who sentenced his son to death for having killed a calf. Mahavamasa portrays King Elara who was defeated by Duttha Gamini as the just king who. had a bell with a rope attached at the head of his bed, so that all who sought redress might ring it. King Sibi who rescued a dove from a hawk by giving his own flesh to the hawk was also part of the early Chola legends. King Sibi was also called Sembiyan, a title assumed by a number of Chola kings. These legends received enormous emphasis in the later Chola period in the long mythical genealogies incorporated into the copper-plate charters of the 10th and 11th centuries. The earliest version of this is found in the Anbil Plates which gives fifteen names before Vijayalaya Cholan including the historical ones of Karikala, Perunarkilli
41.
Sangam period
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Sangam period is the period in the history of ancient Tamil Nadu spanning from c. 4th century BC to c. It is named after the famous Sangam academies of poets and scholars centered in the city of Madurai, according to Tamil legends, there were three Sangam periods, namely Head Sangam, Middle Sangam and Last Sangam period. Historians use the term Sangam period to refer the last of these, so it is also called Last Sangam period, or Third Sangam period. The Sangam literature is thought to have produced in three Sangam academies of each period. The evidence on the history of the Tamil kingdoms consists of the epigraphs of the region, the Sangam literature. Approximately during the period between 400 BC to AD200, Tamilakam was ruled by the three Tamil dynasties of Pandya, Chola and Chera, and a few independent chieftains, the Velir. There is a wealth of sources detailing the history, socio-political environment and cultural practices of ancient Tamilakam, including volumes of literature, tamilakams history is split into three periods, prehistoric, classical and medieval. A vast array of literary, epigraphical and inscribed sources from around the world provide insight into the socio-political and cultural occurrences in the Tamil nation. The religion of the ancient Tamils closely follow roots of nature worship, in the ancient Sangam literature, Sivan was the supreme God, and Murugan was the one celebrated by the masses, both of them were sung as deified Tamil poets ascending the Koodal academy. The Tamil landscape was classified into five categories, thinais, based on the mood, the season, other ancient works refer to Maayon and Vaali. The most popular deity was Murugan, who has from an early date been identified with Karthikeya. Kannagi, the heroine of the Silappatikaram, was worshiped as Pathini by many Tamils, there were also many temples and devotees of Thirumaal, Siva, Ganapathi, and the other common Hindu deities. The year was made up of twelve months and every two months constituted a season, with the popularity of Mazhai vizhavu, traditionally commencement of Tamil year was clubbed on April 14, deviating from the astronomical date of vadavazhi vizhavu. Pongal, பொங்கல் the festival of harvest and spring, thanking Lord Indiran and Lord El and this day comes on April 14/15. Mazhai Vizhavu, aka Indhira Vizha, the festival for want of rain, celebrated for one month starting from the full moon in Ootrai சித்திரை. It is epitomised in the epic Cilapatikaram in detail, soornavai Vizha, the slaying of legendary Kadamba Asura king Surabadma, by Lord, comes on the sixth day after new moon in Itrai. It is sung about in Thirumurugatrupadai and Purananuru anthology, vaadai Vizha or Vadavazhi Vizha, the festival of welcoming the Lord Surya back to home, as He turns northward, celebrated on December 21/22. It is sung about in Akanauru anthology, aathi Irai min means the star of the God on the Bull
42.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
43.
Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
44.
Buddhist texts
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They can be categorized in a number of ways. These religious texts were written in different languages and scripts. Even after the development of printing, Buddhists preferred to keep to their practices with these texts. The Mahāsāṃghika and the Mūlasarvāstivāda considered both the Buddhas discourses, and of his disciples, to be buddhavacana, a number of different beings such as buddhas, disciples of the buddha, ṛṣis, and devas were considered capable to transmitting buddhavacana. The content of such a discourse was then to be collated with the sūtras, compared with the Vinaya and these texts may then be certified as true buddhavacana by a buddha, a saṃgha, a small group of elders, or one knowledgeable elder. In Theravada Buddhism, the collection of buddhavacana is the Pali Canon. Some scholars believe that some portions of the Pali Canon and Agamas could contain the substance of the historical teachings of the Buddha. In East Asian Buddhism, what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the most common edition of this is the Taishō Tripiṭaka. Then these sutras may be regarded as buddhavacana. Sometimes texts that are considered commentaries by some are regarded by others as Buddhavacana, in Tibetan Buddhism, what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Kangyur. The East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist canons always combined Buddhavacana with other literature in their standard collected editions, however, the general view of what is and is not buddhavacana is broadly similar between East Asian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan Kangyur, which belongs to the schools of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, in addition to containing sutras and vinaya. Doctrinal elaborations were preserved in Abhidharma works and later Karikas, as Buddhism spread geographically, these texts were translated into the local language, such as Chinese and Tibetan. The Pali canon was preserved in Sri Lanka where it was first written down in the first century BCE, the Sri Lankan Pali tradition developed extensive commentaries as well as sub-commentaries for the Pali Canon as well as treatises on Abhidhamma. Sutra commentaries and Abhidharma works also exist in Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, important examples of non-canonical Pali texts are the Visuddhimagga, by Buddhaghosa, which is a compendium of Theravada teachings and the Mahavamsa, a historical Sri Lankan chronicle. Sanskrit Buddhist literature later became the dominant tradition in India until the decline of Buddhism in India, around the beginning of the Christian era, a new genre of sutra literature began to be written with a focus on the Bodhisattva idea, commonly known as Mahayana sutras. Many of the Mahayana sutras were written in Sanskrit and then translated into the Tibetan, some 600 Mahayana Sutras have survived in Sanskrit, or in Chinese and/or Tibetan translation. In the Mahayana tradition there are important works termed Shastras, or treatises which attempt to outline the sutra teachings, the works of important Buddhist philosophers like Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu and Dharmakirti are generally termed Shastras, and were written in Sanskrit
45.
Proselytism
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Proselytism /ˈprɒsəlᵻˌtɪzəm/ is the act of attempting to convert people to another religion or opinion. The word proselytize is derived from the Greek language prefix προσ-, historically in the Koine Greek Septuagint and New Testament, the word proselyte denoted a gentile who was considering conversion to Judaism. Proselytism is illegal in some countries, in the writings of the Baháí Faith, the endeavour to attract people to the religion is strongly emphasized. The process of attracting people to the religion is referred to as teaching, the term proselytism is given the connotation of aggressively teaching the religion to others, and is prohibited. Every Baháí has the obligation of teaching their religion, as it is seen as the path toward bringing peace and justice to the world. Some Baháís move to countries or cities where there are a small number of Baháís to help spread the religion. Some other Baháís move from place to place in a process called travel teaching, when moving or travelling to other countries Baháís are encouraged to integrate into their new society and apply Baháís principles in living and working with their neighbours. In total, however, only a minority of Baháís are directly teaching their religion to others. Despite this, religion has grown at least twice as fast as the population of almost every UN region over the last century, at the same time he stated that Baháís should exercise moderation, tact and wisdom and not be too aggressive in their teaching. In sharing their faith with others, Baháís are cautioned to make sure the person they are proposing to teach is open to hearing what they have to say, in most countries becoming a Baháí is a simple matter of filling out a card stating a declaration of belief. This includes acknowledgement of Baháullah as the messenger of God for this age, awareness and acceptance of his teachings and it does not involve negating ones previous beliefs, due to the Baháí belief in progressive revelation. The Acts of the Apostles and other sources contain several accounts of early Christians following this directive by engaging in individual conversations, evangelical Christians often use the term witnessing to mean discussing ones faith with another person with the intent of proselytism. Most self-described Christian groups have organizations devoted to work which in whole or in part includes proselytism of the non-religious. However the boundary varies from group to group, the Catholic Church claims that it is supporting the existing Catholic community within Russia and is not proselytizing. In 1993 the Balamand declaration on proselytism was released between the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches, even today Buddhism is a growing religion in the West. The role of the bhantes and bhikkus monks for the spread of the message of Buddha, some adherents of Nichiren Buddhism actively proselytise referred to as Shakubuku. Hinduism, also known as Sanatana Dharma, is one of the worlds oldest continuously practiced religions, there is a trend in certain areas of India to stop any apostasy from Hindu faith through social ostracism by fundamentalist Hindu political groups, and the reconverts are usually accepted back. Similarly in recent times any converts from Hinduism to Islam have converted basically to avail polygamy which, however, conversion just for the purpose of polygamy is not permissible by Indian law
46.
Khalatse
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Khaltse or Khalsi is a village in the Leh district of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is located in the Khalsi tehsil,337 km from Srinagar on the old road to Leh. Much of its importance is because it is the place where the road from Kashmir debouches into the Indus Valley, close by are the remains of an old fortified customs house. There is an inscription at Khalatse which carries the name Maharaja Uvima which is attributed to the Kushan king. It was built in competition to another bridge, the Babu Khar bridge, the castle is said to have been the first castle built in the country. The ruins of the castle and also the remains of extensive fields, lha chen Naglug also built the palace at Wanla. In front of the ancient Dard castle at Khalatse is an inscription in an Indian language which probably dates from the period of Dard occupation. Entering Khaltse by the road from Srinigar, it is one is entering the heartland of Buddhism with its chortens or small stupas, mani stones. Upstream from Khalatse, and downstream on the bank of the Indus. The ones downstream are mostly Brokpa or Dards, Khalatse is also famous for its apricots. Because Khalatse is about 400 metres lower than Leh, two crops can be grown each year rather than only one, by the time crops are being sown at Leh in late May, they are already half-grown at Khalatse. According to the 2011 census of India, Khaltse has 156 households, the effective literacy rate is 86. 27%. A. H. Francke (Originally published as, A History of Western Tibet,1977 Edition with critical introduction and annotations by S. S. Gergan & F. M. Hassnain. 1972 reprint, S. Chand, New Delhi
), with Nasik/Karla-period Brahmi script for reference. Circa 120 CE.
