World Folklore And Indian Connections

[ramana]

<!--emo&n^3--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/n3.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='n3.gif' /><!--endemo--> asked in another thread
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->2. The fables. The Panchatrantra are the best-known source, translated to many languages, but what is their original source and where can one find the closest to the originals, plus translations?

3. Much of what is known as Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales are closely related to stories that have been around in India for the usual 145,000,000,000,000,000 years. Where are those stories located originally?
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Ramana replied:

Post # 156
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Also w.r.t. n3post #121 about the origin of world folklore etc., Joseph Jacobs did pioneering research in this area in the late 1800s and wrote numerous books. His conclusions are that the majority of folklore in the West comes from India. he traces the many iterations of the various tales.

Based on his book I once wrote an article on how the Brer Rabbit tale of the tar baby is related to the tale of the Buddha. It was in soc. culture. india in the mid 90s when I came across JJ. Will see if I can find it.

Here is an link to his book about the various tales:

http://www.authorama.com/indian-fairy-tales-1.html


Here are his notes and references:
http://www.authorama.com/indian-fairy-tales-31.html

At a minimum people should read the Notes and Refs.
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[Hauma Hamiddha]

What were the origins of the pa~nchatantra (PT) of the great brAhmaNa viShNusharman?
It is said that he composed to these tales to teach nIti to the errant sons of the king amarashakti of the southern janapada of mahilAropya [ city planted by women?]. In his opening verse he salutes the great teachers of politics and declares the pa~nchtantra to be an epitome of the arthashAstra:
manave vAchaspataye shukrAya parAsharAya sa-sutAya |
cANakyAya ca viduShe namo .astu naya-shAstra-kartR^ibhyaH ||

sakalArtha-shAstra-sAraM jagati samAlokya viShNuSharmedam |
tantraiH pa~ncabhir etac cakAra sumanoharaM shAstraM ||
To manu, to bR^ihaspati, shukra, parAshara and his son and chANakya the learned, we salute; these great makers of shAstras.
Having examined the essence of all shAstras, viShNusharman too, has composed these five volumes, a delightful text.

Thus, the great viShNusharman considers himself to belong to the line of notable scholars of nIti and artha that include vyAsa and parAshara. Here we shall try to have an overview of the history of this notable text and trace the origins of its devices back to the mahAbhArata (Mbh).

The age of viShNusharman may be bracketed by two major signposts. An Iranian version of the PT in Pahlavan from the Sassanian period is rather confidently dated as being from around 550 CE. This provides the upper limit. The PT in addition to the salutation of chANakya also quotes directly from his arthasAstra. Further, in the list of predecessor chANakya is mentioned as the last authority prior to viShNusharman. Given that the core arthashAstra is a mauryan text of around 300 BC, get the lower bound for the PT. On the tentative ground of the janapadas and pATaliputra being mentioned along with petty rulers we may place the text closer to declining the mauryan period when there was brief revival of the janapadas. The PT is also known by other names such as tantrAkhyAyika (the Kashmirian variant), the pa~nchAkhyAnaka or the tantropAkhyAna, and as suggested by some works the most likely original name was nIti pa~ncha tantrAkhyAyika.

A phylogenetic reconstruction suggests that there are two major divisions of the PT texts: 1) the tantrAkhyAyika branch is associated with Nothern India, principally represented by the Kashmirian recension. From it were derived through rather drastic divergence the pa~nchAkhyAnaka of the Jainas. The pa~nchAkhyAnaka recombining with older versions of the PT seems to have given rise to pUrNabhadra variant, in the hands of the eponymous Jaina achArya. A divergent variant of this appears to have been inserted within the ancestral northern bR^ihatkatha and is preserved in the two descendent variants prepared by the Kashmirian brAhmaNas kShemendra [bR^ihatkatha ma~njari] and somadeva [kathasaritsAgara]
2) The southern pa~nchatantra is the shortest version of the text and its primary descendent was that of the south Indian brAhmaNa vasubhAga, who recombined it with material from the southern recension of the bR^ihatkatha to make his text. The version of vasubhAga was transported to Thailand and Indonesia and gave rise to the local versions there. Another variant of the Southern PT, showing an inversion of volume 1 and 2 was prepared by the medieval smArta brAhmaNas of Tamil Nad from the version of vasubhAga. This version was carried by these brAhmaNas during their northward migration to the region of Pashupatinath in Nepal and degenerated into the Nepali version. A version of this also found its way to Bengal where it was recast by nArAyaNa to constitute the hitopadesha.

The tales also traveled west via the Iranians of the Sassanian empire and was eventually incorporated into many Arabic and European folk tales. Thus, based on the investigations of the early western pa~nchatantra scholars Edgerton and Hertel it may be remarked that it was the most widely circulated piece of literature throughout the ancient world and provides a remarkable material for the evolutionary studies on textual memetics.

When we attempt to pierce the veil and look into the Indic precursors of it we find ourselves drawn to that great fountain of all Indic lore the itihAsa, particularly the mahAbhArata. In a very general sense the PT inherits from the Mbh the great Indo-Aryan innovation of nested structure of stories. Thus these stories resemble certain other structure in existence such as: 1) the modular computer programs- with different FOR, WHILE, IF etc loops closed by some delimiter such as a ‘{}’ pair. 2) The structure of chromosomes, with mobile elements inserted one within another. 3) The ancient multi-domain protein which show nesting of domains one within the other. In a more direct sense precursors of the PT can be seen in that great interminable death-bed lecture of bhIshma to yuddhiSThira. Here the kuru grandsire narrates several animal stories related to nIti. These include the maxims of dharma and artha provided by the following tales: 1) long-necked camel killed by the jackal couple. 2) tale of the wise mouse palita and his rivals the cat lomasha, the owl chandraka and mongoose harita. 3) the jIvAjivaka bird pujani that blinded the pa~nchala prince for killing her son. 4) The pativrata pigeon etc. An examination of these tales makes it clear that it was such a base that inspired that great work of viShNusharman and it is not without reason that he acknowledges the great scion of parAshara, the compiler of the great bhArata epic. Not surprisingly it also inspired stream of Buddhist tales, the jAtakas. Thus one of the greatest exports of the Hindus to the world may be ultimately traced back to the literary innovations when of the first great Indic unification under the kuru and the pa~nchAla.

“Be it a horse, a science, or a sword,
A lute, a voice, a woman or a man;
Whether they become useful or not
Depends on the competence of the man
To whom they belong”
So says viShNusharman
[1.44; critical edition of Edgerton]

[Guest]

<b>HINDOO TALES</b>
FREELY TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSCRIT OF THE <b>DASAKUMARACHARITAM</b>
link


<b>THE HITOPADEŚA</b>

<b>Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit</b>

[Guest]

<b>Hira Singh : when India came to fight in Flanders </b>by Talbot Mundy -1879-1940

[Guest]

Jumong (TV series)
more link
Anyone watching Korean TV series based on historical records. In 37 BC, Jumong established Goguryeo, and became its first Taewang ("Supreme King")

During that era, culturally, they were completely identical to Hindus, same rituals and customs. E.g Marriage in front of fire, fruit offering, believe in ills of solar eclipse, cremation, wearing white dress during cremation, bowing in front of elders as its done in South India, role of priest/Brahmins.

There is no difference at all.

[ramana]

The Westward migration of Indian folktales is quite well documented but the Eastward is not well known at all. We need to find links on this travel. Here in will lie the links of the East to India.

For example:

Indianization of Asia

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+May 9 2007, 10:38 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ May 9 2007, 10:38 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Westward migration of Indian folktales is quite well documented but the Eastward is not well known at all. We need to find links on this travel. Here in will lie the links of the East to India.

For example:

Indianization of Asia
[right][snapback]68460[/snapback][/right]
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In contrast, the eastward trajectory of Buddhism is well known, but nothing at all of the corresponding western one. It is the same as sociology for massa and anthropology for the rest.

[acharya]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4...727057212&hl=en
Burke Lecture: You Can't Get Here From There: The Logical Paradox of Creation Myths with Wendy Doniger


Professor Wendy Doniger has published over twenty books about Hindu and cross-cultural religion and mythology, particularly about issues of ... all » illusion, animals, gender, and sex. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion & Society" [Humanities]

[dhu]

resurrected from the trash can..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Talmudic, Indian, and Greek Fables.

Of about thirty fables found in the Talmud and in midrashic literature, twelve resemble those that are common to both Greek and Indian fable; six are parallel to those found only in Indian fable (Fablesof Kybises); and six others can be paralleled in Greek, but have not hitherto been traced to India. <b>Where similar fables exist in Greece, India, and in the Talmud, the Talmudic form approaches more nearly the Indian, whenever this differs from the Greek.</b> Thus, the well-known fable of "The Wolf and the Crane" is told in India of a lion and a crane. When Joshua ben Hananiah told that fable to the Jews, to prevent their rebelling against Rome and once more putting their heads into the lion's jaws (Gen. R. lxiv.), he spoke of the lion and not of the wolf, showing that he was familiar with some form derived from India. The Talmudic fables are, therefore, of crucial importance in distinguishing between the later Æsop's Fables—derived directly from India—and the earlier ones, in which a direct Indian source is difficult to prove.

It is absolutely impossible for these fables to have been invented by the Talmudic sages, inasmuch as they were extant in Greece and India in their time; nevertheless there is, in the Bible, evidence of fable literature among the early Hebrews (see Fable).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Masnavi is a grand collection of fables, stories, sayings, poems, couplets, in persian, of Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi. It is the best known and popular handbook of sufi philosophy and practices, and probably has an islamized content of pre-Islamic Iran. Masnavi also provides several of the contemporary ideas of Persians, Arabs, Greeks about Hindusthan. Masnavi also provides historical hints about contemporary interchanges on Islamization of India which was going on then, e.g. anecdotes during the Mahamud of Gazna's campaigns, stories where slave Hindus play a part, stories where "Infidels' are punished". But it is also full of so many fables which correspond directly with stories from Panchatantra, Hitopadesha, Jataka, and Kuvalayamala.

It includes fables which are so very familiar to the Indian traditions and which a comman Hindu child grows up sleeping to. The details, characters, and the situations are sometimes different, but the central idea of the fable, even the 'punch lines' are the same.

Sample some:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>The Merchant and his Clever Parrot.</span>
There was a certain merchant who kept a parrot in a cage. Being about to travel to Hindustan on business, he asked the parrot if he had any message to send to his kinsmen in that country, and the parrot desired him to tell them that he was kept confined in a cage. The merchant promised to deliver this message, and on reaching Hindustan, duly delivered it to the first flock of parrots he saw. On hearing it one of them at once fell down dead. The merchant was annoyed with his own parrot for having sent such a fatal message, and on his return home sharply rebuked his parrot for doing so. But the parrot no sooner heard the merchant's tale than ho too fell down dead in his cage. The merchant, after lamenting his death, took his corpse out of the cage and threw it away; but, to his surprise, the corpse immediately recovered life, and flew away, explaining that the Hindustani parrot had only feigned death to suggest this way of escaping from confinement in a cage.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>The Lion and the Beasts.</span>
In the book of Kalila and Damna a story is told of a lion who held all the beasts of the neighborhood in subjection, and was in the habit of making constant raids upon them, to take and kill such of them as he required for his daily food. At last the beasts took counsel together, and agreed to deliver up one of their company every day, to satisfy the lion's hunger, if he, on his part, would cease to annoy them by his continual forays. The lion was at first unwilling to trust to their promise, remarking that he always preferred to rely on his own exertions; but the beasts succeeded in persuading him that he would do well to trust Providence and their word. To illustrate the thesis that human exertions are vain, they related a story of a man who got Solomon to transport him to Hindustan to escape the angel of death, but was smitten by the angel the moment he got there. Having carried their point, the beasts continued for some time to perform their engagement. One day it came to the turn of the hare to be delivered up as a victim to the lion; but he requested the others to let him practice a stratagem. They scoffed at him, asking how such silly beast as he could pretend to outwit the lion. The hare assured them that wisdom was of God, and God might choose weak things to confound the strong. At last they consented to let him try his luck. He took his way slowly to the lion, and found him sorely enraged. In excuse for his tardy arrival he represented that he and another hare had set out together to appear before the lion, but a strange lion had seized the second hare, and carried it off in spite of his remonstrances. On hearing this, the lion was exceeding wroth, and commanded the hare to show him the foe who had trespassed on his preserves. Pretending to be afraid, the hare got the lion to take him upon his back, and directed him to a well. On looking down the well, the lion saw in the water the reflection of himself and of the hare on his back; and thinking that he saw his foe with the stolen hare, he plunged in to attack him, and was drowned, while the hare sprang off his back and escaped.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>The Four Hindustanis who censured one another</span>
Four Hindustanis went to the mosque to say their prayers. Each one duly pronounced the Takbir, and was saying his prayers with great devotion, when the Mu'azzin happened to come in. One of them immediately called out, "O Mu'azzin, have you yet called to prayer? It is time to do so." Then the second said to the speaker, "Ah! you have spoken words unconnected with worship, and therefore, according to the Hadis, you have spoiled your prayers." 1 Thereupon the third scolded the last speaker, saying, "O simpleton, why do you rebuke him? Rather rebuke yourself." Last of all, the fourth said, "God be praised that I have not fallen into the same ditch as my three companions." The moral is, not to find fault with others, but rather, according to the proverb, 2 to be admonished by their bad example. Apropos of this proverb, a story is told of two prisoners captured by the tribe of Ghuz. The Ghuzians were about to put one of them to death, to frighten the other, and make him confess where the treasure was concealed, when the doomed man discovered their object, and said, "O noble sirs, kill my companion, and frighten me instead."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Following fable tells that "Tree of Life" (Amar bel or VArunI in Indian traditions) is found in India. In the end, Tree of life comes out to be the 'true knowledge'. This shows how India was known to the west.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>The Tree of Life</span>
A certain wise man related that in Hindustan there was a tree of such wonderful virtue that whosoever ate of its fruit lived forever. Hearing this, a king deputed one of his courtiers to go in quest of it. The courtier accordingly proceeded to Hindustan, and traveled all over that country, inquiring of every one he met where this tree was to be found. Some of these persons professed their entire ignorance, others joked him, and others gave him false information; and, finally, he had to return to his country with his mission unaccomplished. He then, as a last resource, betook himself to the sage who had first spoken of the tree, and begged for further information about it, and the sage replied to him as follows:
The Shaikh laughed, and said to him, "O friend,
This is the tree of knowledge, O knowing one;
Very high, very fine, very expansive,
The very water of life from the circumfluent ocean.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>A Debate</span>
Attending merely to names and outward forms, rather than to the spirit and essence of religion, leads men into error and delusion. Four persons, a Persian, an Arab, a Turk, and a Greek, were traveling together, and received a present of a dirhem. The Persian said he would buy "angur" with it, the Arab said he would buy "inab," while the Turk and the Greek were for buying "uzum" and "astaphil" (staphyle), respectively. Now all these words mean one and the same thing, viz. "grapes;" but, owing to their ignorance of each other's languages, they fancied they each wanted to buy something different, and accordingly a violent quarrel arose between them. At last a wise man who knew all their languages came up and explained to them that they were all wishing for one and the same thing.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

As we know today, although as much would JNU professors deny, Hindus were captured by Islamic invaders, and sold in slavery in the markets of Arabia and Iran. The stories are also full of such Hindu slaves:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>The Hindu Slave who loved his Master's Daughter</span>
A certain man had a Hindu slave, whom he had brought up along with his children, one of whom was a daughter. When the time came for giving the girl in marriage many suitors presented themselves, and offered large marriage portions to gain her alliance. At last her father selected one who was by no means the richest or noblest of the number, but pious and well-mannered. The women of the family would have preferred one of the richer youths, but the father insisted on having his own way, and the marriage was settled according to his wishes. As soon as the Hindu slave heard of this he fell sick, and the mistress of the family discovered that he was in love with her daughter, and aspired to the honor of marrying her. She was much discomposed at this unfortunate accident, and consulted her husband as to what was best to be done. He said, "Keep the affair quiet, and I will cure the slave of his presumption, in such a way that, according to the proverb, 'The Shaikh shall not be burnt, yet the meat shall be well roasted.'" He directed his wife to flatter the slave with the hope that his wish would be granted, and the girl given to him in marriage. He then celebrated a mock marriage between the slave and the girl, but at night substituted for the girl a boy dressed in female attire, with the result that the bridegroom passed the night in quarrelling with his supposed bride. Next morning he had an interview with the girl and her mother, and said he would have no more to do with her, as, though her appearance was very seductive at a distance, closer acquaintance with her had altogether destroyed the charm. Just so the pleasures of the world seem sweet till they are tried, and then they are found to be very bitter and repulsive.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>Hindu Slave of Mahmud of Ghazni</span>
When wise men recognize the true relative importance of the present and the future they cease to shrink from death and annihilation, which lifts them to a higher and nobler life. This is illustrated by an anecdote of Mahmud of Ghazni, quoted from Faridu- 'd-Din 'Attar. Mahmud, in one of his campaigns, took prisoner a Hindu boy, who at first regarded him with the greatest dread, in consequence of the stories he had heard of him from his mother, but afterwards experienced Mahmud's kindness and tenderness, and came to know him and love him. So it is with death. According to the Hadis "Those who have passed away do not grieve because of death, but because of wasted opportunities in life." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Masnavi is also full of the Abrahamic theology, stories of Muhammed, and demeaning references to infedals. But in general, it treats the Hindus and India comparatively well.

An abridged version: http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/masnavi/

[Guest]

Don't know how I missed this post.<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+May 9 2007, 09:14 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ May 9 2007, 09:14 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Jumong (TV series)
more link
Anyone watching Korean TV series based on historical records. In 37 BC, Jumong established Goguryeo, and became its first Taewang ("Supreme King")

During that era, culturally, they were completely identical to Hindus, same rituals and customs.  E.g Marriage in front of fire, fruit offering, believe in ills of solar eclipse, cremation, wearing white dress during cremation, bowing in front of elders as its done in South India, role of priest/Brahmins.

There is no difference at all.[right][snapback]68459[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Mudy, like you, my mother also watches Korean dramas - she goes to the next-next door neighbour's house on some afternoons just to talk and stays there watching the afternoon dramas. She likes them very much and admires how the women and men are very traditional and "it's a lot like in India".

I've not seen the one you mention, but got glimpses of a handful of episodes of two myself when visiting friends. The two I saw were very popular among Buddhists and other uncoverted Koreans, "because it's about traditional life".
Very, very beautiful people of all ages - grandparents, middle aged people, younger individuals, kids - in these programs, by the way <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> A feast for the eyes.

Actually, because of the dish, they get Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean dramas to watch with multilingual subtitles. No English subs, sadly. They watch the ones about Buddhist and/or other old traditional religious society in these countries, as well as some modern romances that aren't affiliated to any religion (read christianity).

About what you wrote. I concur. There's lots of points of similarity. Some still exist today. Small roadside temples in Japan (and Korea, I'm told) to which people show their respects by bowing, like we do. Puja rooms - Shinto people have this, Korean Buddhists too and I'm told traditional Korean religion does as well. Some cultural similarities too.
What I like is that they have high ethical principles and expect much of themselves, but they don't judge others when others fail to live up to the same standards.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->bowing in front of elders as its done in South India<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Filial piety is a constant throughout Asia. Although Buddhism also stressed it, it was already there in all SE and E Asian nations.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->fruit offering to Gods<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Also existed pre-Buddhism. Koreans and Shinto Japanese have been doing this for ages. For the same reasons we do.

The other similarities you mention are rather incredibly like our own practises.

[Guest]

Got carried away in the above. This is more on topic.

Tried to find something on fairy tales in the only encyclopaedia of those I own from which I can copy-paste instead of type out. Encarta's not the most reliable source, I know.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sanskrit literature</b>
<b>PROSE</b>

No department of Indian literature is more interesting to the student of comparative literature than that comprising the fables and fairy tales. <b>Scarcely a single motif of European fable collections is not to be found in some Indian collection, and there is good reason to believe that the bulk of this kind of literature originated in India.</b> The earliest and most important collection of Indian fables is Buddhistic and is written in the Pali language; it appears to date to the 4th century bc. This collection, comprising stories of former lives of Buddha, is known as the Jatakas. The two most important Sanskrit collections, the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesa, are both based on Buddhist sources.
(Others may know, but Panchatantra is not based on Buddhist sources is it? Jatakas are Buddhist. I know next to nothing about the Hitopadesa, so no comment on that.)

A noteworthy feature of the Sanskrit collections of fables and fairy tales is the insertion of a number of different stories within the frame of a single narrative, a style of narration that was borrowed by other Oriental peoples, the most familiar instance being that of the Arabian Nights. The Panchatantra passed from a Pahlavi translation of the original Sanskrit into Arabic, Greek, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Hebrew, Latin, and German and from German into other European languages. The Hitopadesa, said to have been composed by Narayana, purports to be an excerpt from the Panchatantra and other books. The most famous collection of fairy tales is the very extensive Kathasaritsagara, composed by the Kashmiri poet Somadeva about ad1070.

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But I don't mean any 'Indo-European' links, by the way. And this is also correctly dismissed in the following.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Folktales
II  FOLKTALE SCHOLARSHIP</b>
Much 19th-century scholarship concentrated on attempts to account for these similarities. <b>Generally, the 19th-century scholars were unaware of the vast store of African, Native American, and Oceanic lore that existed independently of the Indo-European tradition. They sought their explanations in those parts of the world that seemed important to them. Thus, the Grimms postulated a common Indo-European origin for folktales, and the German philologist Theodor Benfey as well as the Scottish writer William Clouston believed that stories diffused by way of travelers migrating east and west from India. Such theories, however, have proven incomplete and inadequate.</b> Nevertheless, the research of these and other scholars greatly stimulated interest in folklore and folktales. The German scholar <b>Max Muller</b> held that myths originated when Sanskrit and other ancient languages began to deteriorate, and when the Scottish classicist and <b>folklorist Andrew Lang attacked this view</b>, folktales became the subject of additional attention. Research was further stimulated by the immense popularity of The Golden Bough (1890), a 12-volume compendium of ancient lore by the British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->That's another myth put to rest then.

Finally:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Arabian Nights</b>
Arabian Nights, or The Thousand and One Nights, collection of stories from Persia, Arabia, India, and Egypt, compiled over hundreds of years. Most of the stories originated as folk tales, anecdotes, or fables that were passed on orally.
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2002. © 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Husky,
In Korean they call it "Hallyu" or Korean Wave. Some Dramas/Series are really good. Another, my favorite.

<b>Dae Jang Geum ("The Jewel in the Palace") </b>

Here we get with English subtitles, but now I have picked up Korean (20%) Atleast understand common word, my Korean vocabulary had really gone up. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> These series are also available in local library.

Culturally, we are same.

Jumong is about formation of Go dynasty, trade security, importance of Salt. War over salt or salt trade, development of smoke bomb and steel sword, Palace politics, revenge, war against Han Dynasty etc.

Dae Jang Geum- This series about first woman doctor for King, Royal Kitchen politics, food as a medicine, cure by herbs, food and acupenture, war over Herbs and access to mountain and trade route etc.

[ramana]

Site with stories from Panchatantra and Tenali Ramakrishna
Next we need Birbal stories.

[ramana]

Two cross posts from the unmasking AIT thread:
one
<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Jan 29 2007, 07:03 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Jan 29 2007, 07:03 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another observation that Professor Edgerton makes challenges our persistent assumption that animal fables function mainly as adjuncts to religious dogma, acting as indoctrination devices to condition the moral behaviour of small children and obedient adults. Not the Machiavellian Panchatantra: "Vishnu Sarma undertakes", Edgerton notes, "to instruct three dull and ignorant princes in the principles of polity, by means of stories . . . .[This is] a textbook of artha, 'worldly wisdom, or niti, polity, which the Hindus regard as one of the three objects of human desire, the other being dharma, 'religion or morally proper conduct' and kama 'love' . . . . The morals of the stories are often amoral. They glorify shrewdness and practical wisdom in the affairs of life, and especially in politics and the conduct of government."

This realistic practicality explains why the original Sanskrit villain jackal, the decidedly jealous, sneaky and evil vizier-like Damanaka ('Victor') is his frame-story's winner, and not his goody-goody brother Karataka who is presumably left 'Horribly Howling' at the vile injustice of Part One's final murderous events. <b>In fact, in its steady migration westward the persistent theme of evil-triumphant in Kalila and Dimna, Part One frequently outraged Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders — so much so, indeed, that ibn al-Muqaffa carefully inserts (no doubt hoping to pacifiy the powerful religious zealots of his own turbulent times) an entire extra chapter at the end of Part One of his Arabic masterpiece, putting Dimna in jail, on trial and eventually to death. </b>So much for naughty jackals!   

Needless to say there is no vestige of such dogmatic moralising in the collations that remain to us of the pre-Islamic original — the Panchatantra. Technically, from the perspective of a more subtle and flexible functionality, Joseph Jacobs in 1888[24] offers a less coercive interpretation of how the Panchatantra/Kalila and Dimna stories might work more effectively to modify human behaviour: " . . . . <b>if one thinks of it, the very raison d'être of the Fable is to imply its moral without mentioning it."</b>
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and
<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Jan 31 2007, 07:04 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Jan 31 2007, 07:04 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I was thinking of Olender's paper and origins of Pauline Christianity and the AIT and have come to a new conclusion.

The AIT completes the work started by Paul. Paul was the one that broke the social link to Judaism by allowing non Jews to become Christians and rejecting circumcision. However he was unable to take the Hebrew origins out of the Bible. The Greek and Latin versions were explained as trying to make the message reach Europe but the real reason is to take the Bible out of Hebrew. The AIT with its core idea of Sanskrit as the link language for IE languages enables this transformation. Till now I was thinking all these German scholars of AIT were trying to get a glorified ancestors to refute the Brits calling them descendents of Huns and other tribes, but now I see it as the greater project of gettig the Bible out of the Hebrew language in order to make it more universal.

Thus European scholars AIT seeks to break the language link of Hebrew.

But how to reconcile the fact that most AIT scholars are now Jewish? And that the AIT has stagnated now and is going nowhere.

Maybe the real reason is to ensure to goes no where.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


<!--QuoteBegin-Husky+Jan 30 2007, 06:28 AM-->QUOTE(Husky @ Jan 30 2007, 06:28 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->And what's up with 'Professor' Edgerton describing the Panchatantra as 'Machiavellian'?
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husky,

herrenvolk ethics is restricted to the genre of "manifesto" and this restriction has been increasing in severity for a very long time (see quote below). <b>the fact that the prototypical semitism was a leading characteristic of greek thought was a minor scandal for certain quarters when balagangadhara's theories were first aired, as well a polemical point against balu's theory. if the give and take between romans and jews can be traced to the effects of this type of ethics predominating among both, then this would essentially confirm ramana's contention that "The AIT completes the work started by Paul." I mean, we already know that aquinas massively imported greek normative thought to buttress the semitism of christianity. if paul was the one who started the process, by obviously relying on his roman background, then where does that leave the question of the semetic "ethical" "revolutionary locus?? why selectively forget the pagan past of the jews.</b>

<b>AIT allows for IE development within a normative europe, but this an absolute impossibilty given the specific nature of vedic ethics (acc to balu, non-normative (indian) ethics cannot be derived from normative (euro) ethics, while the opposite is certainly possible, given certain specific circumstances. these circumstances were the invasion of indic into europe. </b> notice the early native manifesto polemics accompanying the gypsy migrations into europe which continue down to this day . notice the slight change of parshu zoroastrianism into an "ethical-type prophetic religion", as it migrated into the ME/Med from the east. <b>the panchatantra misinterpretaion and reformulation is just another example.</b> by contrast, there is nil manifesto-type demonization of parsis in india. narratives can travel freely within asia, given that the "the strategy of social interaction is the same within the Asian culture" (balu). such is not obviously the case when going into europe..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->“This absence of the terminology to talk about ethics differentiates the Indian traditions from the Greek culture. <b>That is to say, there is a difference in kind between the Greek ethics and the Indian ethics: </b>one had the words to talk about it, whereas the other does not. Secondly, this difference has some significance regarding the 'reflective' thinking that VL is supposed to exemplify. How is it possible to reason and think about ethics, when you do not even have the words in which to do so? Obviously, you cannot. That is, there is a second kind of difference too, a consequence of the first: the Indian culture did not have the ability to reason and think about ethics. (That is why VL provides “a mosaic-like picture of feelings, attitudes and thoughts”.) Thirdly, <b>if this is the difference that separates Indians from their Greek (or Roman) counterparts, even though coming after the Greeks by almost by a thousand years, the Indian thinkers are at the lower rung of the moral ladder: the Indians (of about a thousand years ago), followed by the Greeks (more than two thousand five hundred years ago),</b> and then the contemporary moral philosophy. There is, however, a degree of difference between the Greeks and the contemporary moral philosophy: the latter is 'more' reflective than the former. [/B] (Pp.96-97) balangangadhara citing a western theorist<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

kazanas too makes note of a concretedness in ME narratives, which he generalizes to the western sphere:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Vedic tradition is not encaged in gross material forms </b>and its deities are not such anthropomorphic (or zoomorphic) figures <b>as in other [narratives],</b> <b>like those of Mesopotamia, Egypt or Greece. </b>In the hymns and in later texts we find abstractions, qualities and essences to a greater degree than concrete characteristics and actions. Thus there is creation with gross materials as in the RV hymn to Viövakarman X 81 or the dismemberment of Puruêa in X 90 but also, and more often, with subtle forces like mÄyÄ or asuratva through will, inner vision and meditation as in the nÄsadÉya X 129, or in X 190, and in the upanishadic formulas sa aikêata ‘he envisioned’, so’kÄmayata ‘he desired’, sa tapo’tapyata ‘he meditated/brooded or practised austerity’ in BÖhÄdaraèyaka Up I, 2, 5-6. Thus the Vedic mind, even if only in few and select individuals, could conceive and accept that Manu and the Seven Seers took with them on the boat the seeds of creatures and that through tapas Manu would be able to create anew all the creatures including devas and asuras (MB III 185, 49-52).

<b>The Mesopotamians, on the other hand, do not display a similar capacity for abstraction:</b> there is nothing like mahazd devÄZnÄm asuratvazm ezkam ‘single is the great god-power of the gods’ (RV III 55 refrain) or the One that breathed without air, of itself, prior to existence and nonexistence (X 129). The creation of men in AtrahasÉs requires gross materials like clay and blood, specialist gods like Nintu (Jacobsen108), who is the great goddess Ninhursag now in her aspect of womb-goddess or divine midwife, and concrete actions as when “She pinched off fourteen pieces (of clay)/… seven pieces on the right/ seven on the left” and “She covered her head/ … / Put on her belt…” etc (MM 16-7). In the Enäma Elish Marduk creates the universe from parts of Tiamat, deification of Mother-chaos, again in very concrete terms (MM 255-7), like the dismemberment in the Puruêa Säkta. <b>Consider also the Mesopotamian need for temples and statues of gods, whereas the rigvedic people had none and were content to know their deities by their attributes (and as expressions of the One) and made their offerings on any patch of ground strewn with sacred grass.</b> The Tablet of Destinies (symbolic but solid) is another example of the Mesopotamian concrete concepts. <b>Thus the Mesopotamian mind apparently could not deal in abstract entities like IáÄ (in the ¬B version) or the Seven Seers (in the epic) or a sacrifice that creates a new generation of humans or the mere ‘seeds’ of creatures.</b>
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These are important to understand the spread of Indic folklore to the West as it is primarily founded on the Mesopatamian mind despite its Greek and Roman facade.

[Guest]

There are 6 major arts-music,sculpture,theatre,painting,dance,literature

From these 2 of them(theatre and sculpture) take advance in 2 societies -Greece and India.
While societies as Egipt and Irak had sculptures ,none of them has the sculptures whit so free movements as indian or greek sculpture.Why so? Egipt and Mesopotamia had autoritarian kings whit total powers and sculpture was design to expres the power of rulers.But Greece and India having democratic traditions ,their sculpture is free in movements.

In theatre also India and ancient Greece are the champions.Also because theatre supose mass gathering of people,a democratic spirit.

India have 2 points more then Greece in democratic ruleship.
1-A longer tradition continuity in democratic spirit
2-Lack of rampant slavery as in Greece(were half of population was slave)

[acharya]

One request Honsol.

Can you run a spell check on the post you post so that it is more readable.
It does not take much effort.
Thanks

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>US readers hooked on to Indian comics</b>
Jacinta D'Souza | Bangalore
Batman, Superman and Spiderman may now have to pack up their hoods in the US as American fans of comics appear to be hooked on to tales of characters inspired by Indian mythology.

<b>The "Ramayana Reborn" comic series, set against a futuristic background, had sold over two lakh copies in just four months since its launch in the US. </b> 

The 30-part series, being published by Virgin Comics (the new entertainment arm of British industrialist Sir Richard Branson) is receiving a "very favourable response", says Samarjit Chaudhary, Vice President Marketing of Gotham Comics, which has tied up with the former to publish its titles.

The US readership numbers indicate Indian-inspired content was picking up, be it Ramayana or titles "Devi", "Sadhu", "Snake Woman", churned out by celebrities like famous director Shekhar Kapoor and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra.

<b>"Devi" sales crossed the three lakh mark while the "Sadhu" and "Snake Woman" had crossed the two lakh mark in just four months,</b> he said.

"Indian-inspired content has begun appealing to kids globally. Indians, I think are one of the best storytellers in the world. We know some of the best stories and we know how to tell them well," he added.

Repackaging of old tales and telling them in a "global language" using a visual format was what turned the dice in favour of India, said Samarjit.

It is the "freshness" in the Indian tales that were appealing to the Western readers, who hitherto had been brought up on a staple diet of space heroes flying over the city, unleashing sticky webs, careening walls, shooting down targets and vanishing into the darkness of the night.

However, Virgin comics' new titles like the 'Sadhu' takes off in a different world, which are several light years away from the Superman and Sideman's of the world.

Set in the background of the British Raj in India, the protagonist, James arrives from the Western continent to India to be part of the Queen's army that has been entrusted the task of crushing a recent mutiny.

However, the tranquillity of the Indian seas, the long shadows thrown by its thick forest, the enigma of its culture, endears him to India and he unconsciously finds himself in a mission that he was destined to lead.

The Indian concepts of 'karma', 'destiny' and 'time' are the new hinges on which these new stories move around.

<b>Indian concepts like destiny being the controller versus the Western notion that man creates his own destiny, appears to have got these readers, who were looking for deeper meanings in life, hooked on the Indian comic.</b>

"In the entertainment industry, it is novelty or freshness that drives the market, including comics," he said.

The popular Indian concept of 'nagin' makes an appearance as the 'Snakewoman' stalking the streets of Los Angeles, to avenge the enemies.

The images of the 'nagin' unleashing her venom may all be popular in India, but in the West, it has a new appeal.
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[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Jun 3 2007, 10:05 PM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Jun 3 2007, 10:05 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->One request Honsol.

Can you run a spell check on the post you post so that it is more readable.
It does not take much effort.
Thanks
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Can you be more specific?I check my post and i dont see any error.

[Guest]

http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/connections/Europe.php#1
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