The Sterling Book of Essence of Indian Thought


Book Description

"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and great grandmother of tradition. Mark Twain Essence of Indian Thought is about the contribution of India to the thoughts, cultures and traditions of the world. The debt owed by the west to other civilisations and to India in particular, goes back to the earliest epoch of the ‘Western’ scientific tradition, the age of the classical Greeks and continued up until the dawn of the modern era, the renaissance when Europe was awakening from its Dark Ages. This book is an humble attempt to put together some of the aspects of India’s contribution to the thoughts of the world. Upanishads and Yoga both speak of universal values and constitute the heritage of all peoples. Other subjects like Ayurveda, Kamasutra and various forms of Indian arts-painting, music and dance have been analysed and discussed elaborately. The book draws attention to the Indian art of storytelling, the origin of mathematics, including the zero and decimal system.




Pacal's Portal to Paradise at Palenque


Book Description

The Maya are held up as the supreme apogee of indigenous Amerindian peoples in Central America - but is that true? Why are the imagery, deity, hero and god names so remarkably similar to that in Ancient India? The Pacific Ocean equatorial currents provide direct marine highways from Asia direct to central America and the Maya and vice versa. This book provides comparative aspects of archaeology, iconography, mythology and available history that focuses on Palenque where the architecture, sculpture, architectural construction and design are unusual even for the Maya to show that they relate directly, and certainly originates, from many examples in India. The supreme iconographical monument from the Maya civilisation is thought by many to be Pacal's Funerary Slab at Palenque and this is shown to reflect this same iconography originating in India but assimilated into the finest achievement of Mesoamerican civilisation.




Inca Origins


Book Description

The first section of this work is a general review of some of the researches undertaken by the first Europeans who entered the Pacific and who readily perceived the contacts and cultural connections between Asia and Australia, South America and even Africa. The central chapters review the archaeology and associated references in South America with parallels included where appropriate from Asia and more usually with the Ancient Middle East. This section concentrates more on the Inca Origin myths as well as the many references in myth and legend showing that there must have been mariner contacts between Asia and South America probably over 5000 years before the arrival of the Europeans. The middle to last chapters deal with the many parallel cultural aspects that are reflected in the Near Middle East that are most likely the result of this cross-Pacific transfer through Oceania to South America that appear in the available archaeological and iconographical record as well as the evidence preserved in the local oral traditions in myths and legends where applicable.




Trees of Paradise and Pillars of the World


Book Description

Assemblies of rectangular stone pillars, or stelae, fill the plazas and courts of ancient Maya cities throughout the lowlands of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western Honduras. Mute testimony to state rituals that linked the king's power to rule with the rhythms and renewal of time, the stelae document the ritual acts of rulers who sacrificed, danced, and experienced visionary ecstasy in connection with celebrations marking the end of major calendrical cycles. The kings' portraits are carved in relief on the main surfaces of the stones, deifying them as incarnations of the mythical trees of life. Based on a thorough analysis of the imagery and inscriptions of seven stelae erected in the Great Plaza at Copan, Honduras, by the Classic Period ruler "18-Rabbit-God K," this ambitious study argues that stelae were erected not only to support a ruler's temporal claims to power but more importantly to express the fundamental connection in Maya worldview between rulership and the cosmology inherent in their vision of cyclical time. After an overview of the archaeology and history of Copan and the reign and monuments of "18-Rabbit-God K," Elizabeth Newsome interprets the iconography and inscriptions on the stelae, illustrating the way they fulfilled a coordinated vision of the king's ceremonial role in Copan's period-ending rites. She also links their imagery to key Maya concepts about the origin of the universe, expressed in the cosmologies and mythic lore of ancient and living Maya peoples.




Ancient Maya Politics


Book Description

With new readings of ancient texts, Ancient Maya Politics unlocks the long-enigmatic political system of the Classic Maya.










The Mosaic Map of Madaba


Book Description

In the early 1880's dissension arose among the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of al-Karak, east of the Dead Sea. Up to that time the believers of both religions had lived peacefully together in the city. Problems arose and the Christians decicded to move. They were allowed to settle at Madaba. The government gave permission to build churches, but exclusively on those spots where churches had existed in Antiquity. The immigrants removed the debris from still partially visible foundation walls of the ancient churches. During this work they discovered in 1884 a marvelous mosaic map. It had been part of the floor of a large cathedral. The surviving fragments were roughly repaired and incorporated in the floor of the new St. George's church. It took nearly a hundred years and many admirers to have the map finally restored. This book is an introductory guide and can be a help to different kinds of people, such as visitors, students, and professors teaching first level archaeology, bible, and Umwelt. Numbers on the sketch included in the guide, refer the reader to appropriate information in the booklet. A colour reproduction of the map and a black/white sketch is included.




Star Gods of the Maya


Book Description

“A prodigious work of unmatched interdisciplinary scholarship” on Maya astronomy and religion (Journal of Interdisciplinary History). Observations of the sun, moon, planets, and stars played a central role in ancient Maya lifeways, as they do today among contemporary Maya who maintain the traditional ways. This pathfinding book reconstructs ancient Maya astronomy and cosmology through the astronomical information encoded in Pre-Columbian Maya art and confirmed by the current practices of living Maya peoples. Susan Milbrath opens the book with a discussion of modern Maya beliefs about astronomy, along with essential information on naked-eye observation. She devotes subsequent chapters to Pre-Columbian astronomical imagery, which she traces back through time, starting from the Colonial and Postclassic eras. She delves into many aspects of the Maya astronomical images, including the major astronomical gods and their associated glyphs, astronomical almanacs in the Maya codices and changes in the imagery of the heavens over time. This investigation yields new data and a new synthesis of information about the specific astronomical events and cycles recorded in Maya art and architecture. Indeed, it constitutes the first major study of the relationship between art and astronomy in ancient Maya culture. “Milbrath has given us a comprehensive reference work that facilitates access to a very broad and varied body of literature spanning several disciplines.” ―Isis “Destined to become a standard reference work on Maya archeoastronomy . . . Utterly comprehensive.” —Andrea Stone, Professor of Art History, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee