dsubrahmanyam's blog

Just finished this book by Margaret George.
NIcely written book on Mary of Magdalene who is mentioned in Bible many times. She is recently on focus after the publication of Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The story starts with Magdalene as a child and goes to Jerusalem for visit with her parents. On their way back Mary meets Jesus who comes to Jerusalem with his parents. Mary stays with Jesus family for one night and then departs to Magdalene with her parents. On her way to Jerusalem she pick a idol. She grows in Magdalene. The idol is in fact a evil who possess her and invites other evils also to stay with Mary. Magdalene marry’s Joel who works for her father. They r blessed with a girl child. Mean while the demons and evil spirits possed MAry becomes active. Mary and Joel decides to take a oath to drive them away. All the efforts made by them are wasted and the the temple priest suggests that mary to go to the desert where John the Baptist is preaching. MAry takes the advice and starts for the desert. She faces too many problems and decides to end her life instead of submitting to the evil spirits. At that time she meets Jesus again who cures her driving away the sprits by commonding them to leave her. Her husband rejects her suspecting that she has cheated him and Mary becomes a follower of Jesus. The book was well written ina very simple language and story is smooth. Main incidents of Jesus and Mary are clearly brought out in the story and it is really a worth reading

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Hello all ilanders. Hope you are all doing fine and enjoying ur blog posting and reading activities. I came back againg to my blog after a long time (almost 2 years ). Somewhat busy in work. Hope from now onwords I may find some time to go through all of your postings again.

Thank you all those friends who visited my blog and posted their valuable comments

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WIshing  all  rediffilanders a happy and prosperous New year 2008. Hope this new year fulfills all ur wishes and makes all ur dreams come true.

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I was watching closely the different arguments and discussions about
the ‘RAMSETU” in papers and people reactions about it. Yes it is really
interesting to know who built it. Was it Vanara sena or was it a
natural formation.
Yes I too felt bad when a question was raised about the ‘astitva’ of
Sri Rama. We are from our childhood told about his great deeds and it
is in our blood.

Some of the questions that i was trying to find out are

1. What kind of proof ASI is looking for to prove that SriRam is not a mythical character.

2. Why after so many centuries this kind of question should be raised?

3. If ram setu was not built by Ram as said by Valmiki, how he came to
know about it ? Was it a raised formation during the Valmikis period?

4. If chainese can build a wall (Great Wall of Chaina) with the
technologies available at that time is it not possible for ram to build
such setu?

5. There are so many unexplained structures like Great Stonehenge, INCA
lines etc which were constructed. How these constructions were made and
what kind of technologies are available to them? A similar tecnology
might have enabled Sri Ram to make such a setu.

All those who read Ramayana will agree with me that Valmiki has 
extensive geographical knowledge and techinical knowledge available
during his time. And I feel that knowledge our ancesters has is far
better that what we do have now!! (my personal openion many may not
agree to this). Lets not forget all the scriptures are sources of high
level knowledge and is a result of constant probing of the fundamental
questions raised again and again by people of all religions.



I fell this whole issue is more of a political game than endevour to know the truth.

I dont know whether Ram really existed or not in treta yuga but he exists in the hearts of all of us.

WHat do u say??

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Hi friends

I was reading my fellow ilanders blogs though i did not post any of my own for a long time !

All my fellow ilanders aer well aware of the happenings around the world and especially in India. One of news item constant in the present days news is the inhuman activities against the small children, kids and new born babies. Though reports were made about these incidents now and then in the papers, it attracted the public attenction with Nithari killings. When i saw this item in the news i was dump. I dont know what to think. These peple were almost coaught red-handed. Their kitchen was a desection lab where the childeren were cut after they were abused and later buried in their compound itself. Still there people are not punished for their crimes. Just imagine the plight of those kids who were innocent and so young that they know nothing of the evil of this world. They were killed mercilesly for no fault of theirs.

Following this news is a news item is the findings of badies of children of different ages from different parts in India. though they did not get similar treatment as that of the Nithari killings they have seen the light and again no action against the defaulters.

Third item that caught my attenction  is the news that a just born baby wes left in a car parking lot in Mumbai in a posh locality. No one knows who left the baby there. Even the watch man of the building was unaware of its presence till next day morning. Police sprang into action and started investigation. They suspected thay it may belong to one of the residents of the apartments and sent the blood samples of all the residents for DNA test. After that god only knows what happened!!

In between there was a lull about these kind of incidents. Another case i came to know was still horrible. This time a new born baby was found in a Municipal trash can. You may think it happened many times earlier, but this has a twist. This baby was found with 27 stab wounds on her body. When I saw the picture in TV I was in tears. A new born baby still to open her eyes. Do not know her cruel mother and cruel father. Do not know that she is going to be killed as soon as she sees this world. I dont know how to express my feelings friends. I hope u can understand them well.

All these incidents made me thinking that gradually we r losing what we call our human nature and gradually becoming inhuman. may be our next generation will be still worst. It is high time we wake up and educate the younger generation the human values. Waht do u say my friends? Please wake up now and tell the world that we are humans and we will be humans

Thank you for patient reading.

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Hope ur all doing fine and enjoyed the colorful holi. Belated wishes to u all. I could not post any blogs recently as I was very busy (!!) in my work. Now I am a little bit free and soon will start my postings. Thank you very much all for ur nice comments and observations on my previous postings. Have a nice day

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The Nobel Prizes are prizes awarded annually to people (and, in the case of the Peace Prize, sometimes to organizations) who have completed outstanding research, invented ground-breaking techniques or equipment, or made an outstanding contribution to society in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, medicine or physiology and economics. They are widely regarded as the supreme commendation in their respective subject areas. Those honored with a prize are known as Nobel Laureates. No prize was given in the field of mathematics. Many reasons were given for this omission but actual reason is not known.

The Prizes were instituted by the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel through his will. They were first awarded in 1901, five years after Nobel’s death. The prize in economics, instituted by the Bank of Sweden, has been awarded since 1969.

As of October 2006, a total of 781 Nobel Prizes have been awarded, 763 to individuals (33 of these to women) and 18 to organizations. A few Prize winners have declined the award. There are years in which one or more Prizes are not awarded; during World War II, for instance, no Prizes were awarded in any category between 1940 and 1942. Each Prize stipulates, however, that it must be awarded at least once every five years. Prizes cannot be revoked. Since 1974, no award may be made posthumously, i.e. nominees must be alive at the time of their nomination.

The names of the laureates were announced in the month of October every year. The Prizes are then awarded at formal ceremonies held annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.� The Peace Prize ceremony has been held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905-1946); the Aula of the University of Oslo (1947-1990); and most recently at the Oslo City Hall. As of 2005, the other Prize ceremonies have been held at the Stockholm Concert Hall.

Each award can be given to a maximum of three recipients per year. They each consist of a gold medal; a diploma; the extension of Swedish citizenship; and a sum of money. Currently the latter is about ten million Swedish Kronor (slightly more than one million Euros or about 1.4 million US dollars). �In case of more than one winner the prize is split among the winner. Prize in the same category can not beven for more than 3 people.

Posthumous nominations for Prizes are not allowed. In two cases the Prize was awarded posthumously to people who died in the months between their nomination and selection as a winner: UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskj�ld (1961, Peace) and Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1931, Literature). Since 1974, laureates must be alive at the time of the announcement of the award in October. There has been one laureate - William Vickrey (1996, Economics) - who died after the prize was announced but before it could be presented to him. In 1948 Mahatma Gandhi would have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but he was killed several days after the award was announced.

�In 1973 when Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho shared the Peace Prize for bringing peace to Vietnam, even though the War in Vietnam was ongoing at the time. Le Duc Tho declined the award, for the stated reason that peace had not been achieved

�

Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948 but never won it.

�

Iin 2002, a Prize was awarded to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn for the development of mass spectrometry in protein chemistry, an award that failed to recognise the achievements of Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas of the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt.

^�

Rosalind Franklin, made some of the key steps toward the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, but died of ovarian cancer in 1958, four years before Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins (one of Franklin’s collaborators) were awarded the Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1962.

In the history of the Nobel Prize, there have been only four people to have received two Nobel Prizes. These are:

Marie Curie

Physics [1903]: Discovery of Radioactivity

Chemistry [1911]: Isolation of Pure Radium

Linus Pauling

Chemistry [1954]: Hybridized Orbital Theory

Peace [1962]: Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Activism

John Bardeen

Physics [1956]: Invention of Transistor

Physics [1972]: Theory of Superconductivity

Frederick Sanger

Chemistry [1958]: Structure of the Insulin Molecule

Chemistry [1980]: Virus Nucleotide Sequencing

• Otto Heinrich Warburg was an exceptional case. He had the distinction of being offered two Nobel Prizes: Medicine [1931]�On Respiration of cells�that he received, and, another Nobel Award in the same field in 1944: which he was prevented from accepting by the Nazi government, which had issued a decree in 1937 that prohibited Germans from accepting Nobel Prizes.

• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, 1944, and 1963. The first two prizes were specifically in recognition of the group’s work during the world wars.

• Eight fathers and sons have both won Nobels (J.J. Thomson in 1906 and George Paget Thomson in 1937)(William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg both in 1915)(Niels Henrik Bohr in 1922 and Aage Bohr in 1975) (Arthur Kornberg in 1959 and Roger D. Kornberg in 2006); one husband (Pierre Curie), wife (Marie Curie), and daughter (Ir�ne Joliot-Curie) have all won prizes. The only siblings to win Nobel Prizes are Jan Tinbergen (Economics, 1969) and his younger brother Niko Tinbergen (Medicine, 1973).

• Only one person has the distinction of being an Oscar winner and a Nobel Laureate. The Irishman, George Bernard Shaw winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1938.

�

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Hi friends
I wish you all your family members friends and near and dear a happy, merry, cheerful and a prosperous new year 2007

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Dear friends
thankyou very much for ur comments on my post “M.S. The Nightingale of India” It is really a great feeling to reaad all ur comments.

Malini Lasker I thank u very much for ur nice comment

Mainak Mazumder thank u very much. I visited ur blog but could not go through ur postings. I wiil do that in near future. Yeah i do agree with u that Disaster Management is a must every where. Surely i will go through ur postings in near future. Thank you again.

Prasad K thank you for ur nice observations on my blog. I had more matter and photographs and some links for downloading MS music but i did not put them. Thank you again

Thank you Dwadasi Murthy, meena sundar, jagannath, A J, amazing santro and satyanarayana for all ur nice comments.

All ur comments gave me moral boosting . Thank you all again

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Hi friends I am here again after a considerable time gap. I was busy so I could post any new blogs. This time my blog is about the time measurement followed in ancient India during vedic times and later periods.

A detailed information on time measuirement is mentioned in Book I Chapter III Of Vishnu Purana. Hope this information will be useful to all of my fellow bloggers

Sidereal metrics

• a paramanu is the normal interval of blinking in humans, or approximately 4 seconds


• a vighati is 6 paramaanus, or approximately 24 seconds


• a ghadiya is 60 vighatis, or approximately 24 minutes


• a muhurta is equal to 2 ghadiyas, or approximately 48 minutes


• a nakshatra ahoratram or sidereal day is exactly equal to 30 muhurtas (Note: A day is considered to begin and end at sunrise, not midnight.)

An alternate system described in the Vishnu Purana Time measurement section of the Vishnu Purana Book I Chapter III is as follows:

• 15 twinklings of the eye = 1 K�sht�h�


• 30 K�sht�h�s = 1 Kal�


• 30 Kal�s = 1 Muh�rtta


• 30 Muh�rttas = 1 day (24 hours)


• 30 days = 1 month


• 6 months = 1 Ayana


• 2 Ayanas = 1 year or one day (day + night) of the gods

Small units of time used in the Vedas

• a trasarenu is the combination of 6 celestial atoms.


• a truti is the time needed to integrate 3 trasarenus, or 1/1687.5th of a second.


• a vedha is 100 trutis.


• a lava is 3 vedhas.


• a nimesha is 3 lavas, or a blink.


• a kshanas is 3 nimeshas.


• a kashthas is 5 kshanas, or about 8 seconds.


• a laghu is 15 kashthas, or about 2 minutes.


• 15 laghus make one nadika, which is also called a danda. This equals the time before water overflows in a six-pala-weight [fourteen ounce] pot of copper, in which a hole is bored with a gold probe weighing four masha and measuring four fingers long. The pot is then placed on water for calculation.


• 2 dandas make one muhurta.


• 6 or 7 dandas make one yamah, or 1/4th of a day or night.


• 4 praharas or 4 yamas are in each day or each night.

Lunar metrics

• a tithi (also spelled thithi ) or lunar day is defined as the time it takes for the longitudinal angle between the moon and the sun to increase by 12�. Tithis begin at varying times of day and vary in duration from approximately 19 to approximately 26 hours.


• a paksa (also paksha) or lunar fortnight consists of 15 tithis


• a masa or lunar month (approximately 29.5 days) is divided into 2 pakshas: the one between new moon and full moon is called gaura (bright) or shukla paksha; the one between full moon and new moon krishna (dark) paksha


• a ritu is 2 masa


• an ayanam is 3 rituhs


• a year is 2 Aayanas

Tropical metrics

• a yaama is 7� Ghatis


• 8 yaamas 1 half of the day(either day or night)


• an ahoratram is a tropical day (Note: A day is considered to begin and end at sunrise, not midnight.)

Reckoning of time among other entities

Reckoning of time amongst the pitrs.

• 1 human masa = 1 day of the pitrs


• 30 days of the pitrs = 1 month of the pitrs


• 12 months of the pitrs = 1 year of the pitrs


• The lifespan of the pitrs is 100 years of the pitrs (= 3000 human years)

Reckoning of time amongst the Devas.

• 1 human year = 1 day of the Devas.


• 30 days of the Devas = 1 month of the Devas.


• 12 months of the Devas = 1 year of the Devas


• The lifespan of the Devas is 100 years of the Devas (= 36,000 human years)

The Vishnu Purana Time measurement section of the Vishnu Purana Book I Chapter III explains the above as follows:

• 2 Ayanas (six month periods, see above) = 1 year or one day (day + night) of the devas


• 360 days of the devas = 1 year of the devas


• 12,000 years of the devas = 4 Yugas

Reckoning of time for Brahma.

• 12,000 years of the Devas = 1 day of Brahma (4320,000,000 human years). This day is divided into 1000 parts called charanas. The charanas are divided as follows:

The cycle repeats itself so altogether there are 1000 cycles of yugas in one day of Brahma.

�         One cycle of the above four yugas is one mahayuga (4.32 million solar years)

�         A manvantara consists of 71 mahayugas (306,720,000 solar years). Each Manvantara is ruled by a Manu.

�         After each manvantara follows one Sandhi Kala of the same duration as a Krita Yuga (1,728,000 = 4 Charana). (It is said that during a Sandhi Kala, the entire earth is submerged in water.)

�         A kalpa consists of a period of 1,728,000 solar years called Adi Sandhi, followed by 14 manvantaras and Sandhi Kalas.

�         A day of Brahma equals

(14 times 71 mahayugas) + (15 x 4 Charanas)

= 994 mahayugas + (60 Charanas)

= 994 mahayugas + (6 x 10) Charanas

= 994 mahayugas + 6 mahayugas

= 1000 mahayugas

as is confirmed by the Gita statement “sahasra-yuga paryantam ahar-yad brahmano viduH”, meaning, a day of brahma is of 1000 (maha-)yugas. Thus a day of Brahma, kalpa, is of duration: 4.32 billion solar years. Two kalpas constitute a day and night of Brahma

• 30 days of Brahma = 1 month of Brahma (259,200,000,000 human years)


• 12 months of Brahma = 1 year of Brahma (3,110,400,000,000 human years)


• 25 years of Brahma = 1 kalpa (77,760,000,000,000 human years)


• 2 kalpas = 1 parardha (155,520,000,000,000 human years)  


• 2 parardhas = 100 years of Brahma, the lifespan of Brahma (311,040,000,000,000 human years)

The Vishnu Purana Time measurement section of the Vishnu Purana Book I Chapter III explains the above as follows:

• 360 days of the gods = 1 year of the gods


• 12,000 years of the gods = 4 Yugas


• 1,000 sets of 4 Yugas = a day of Brahm�


• 50 years of Brahma = 1 Pararddham


• 100 years of Brahma = 1 Param

• 4,000 + 400 + 400 = 4,800 years = 1 Krita Yuga


• 3,000 + 300 + 300 = 3,600 years = 1 Tret� Yuga


• 2,000 + 200 + 200 = 2,400 years = 1 Dw�para Yuga


• 1,000 + 100 + 100 = 1,200 years = 1 Kali Yuga

• Alternately, the reigns of 7 Rishis, Indra and Manu = 1 Manwantara = 71×12,000+A (A is not given) = 852,000 years of the gods+A (A is not given)


• 14 Manwantaras = a day of Brahm�

Our current date

We are currently in the 28th kaliyuga of the first day of the 1st year of the shvetavaraha kalpa of the second parardha of Brahma in the reign of the 7th Manu, Manu Vaivasvata. This is the 51st year of the present Brahma and so about 155 trillion years have elapsed since He took over as Brahma.

The current Kali Yuga (Iron Age) began at midnight 17 February / 18 February in 3102 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar.

It is  very interesting to note that a day of Brahma, kalpa, is of duration: 4.32 billion solar years. And from the latest dating techniques the age of the earth is found to be between 4.5 billion years to 5 billion years.  A close match of these two measurements rises very interesting questions!!

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