Sri Lankan Tamils

Having heard the atrocities and genocide against sri lankan Tamils,I had sleepless nights thinking about their sufferings.

I want to express my sincere condolences to the people who went through this black period in human history.

There is a lesson for every Tamil here,BE UNITED and advance technologically to protect yourself from butchering by others.

"Kalthondri manthondri kadalthondraa mun
thondria moothakudiyagiya naam indru
ulagam aliyum mun alinthu viduvom polirukku
Darwinin theory nybagam varugirathu
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Ondrupatta tamilinam yeni ulagalattum
andru naan mannan alla,verum thondanthaan"

My Old memories of playing cricket.

I had played cricket for my school,district,college,MNC's I worked for and some of the big academies in Bangalore.I had only few photographs,certificates,trophies and videos to remember the days I played cricket.

One of the very important video is taken below at Koramangala Cricket Academy Nets.I am living in US now and didn't get time and opportunity to play cricket which makes me watch this video once in a month to relish my past glories.

Unfortunately I didn't get the video of mine batting right handed.I use to bat right handed in most of the matched and bat left handed in few of the matches.

Batting :



Bowling :

IPL 2008 Grand Finale

Like most of the young crowd in India who likes cricket felt the vaccum in life without IPL in our daily schedules.It's like one month of terrific entertainment and nail biting finishes.
It has unearthed some young talented Indian cricketers to the world stage and play against some of the best international cricketers.

Having played my cricket for most of my time in my younger days(Before 26:)),I never thought of taking cricket as my career path since it is not lucrative as well as lot of politics behind it.Still a Ranji trophy cricketer who plays for his state will receive Rs 2500 for a match.Even that also after a month from the match day as Cheque.

In total IPL was a grand success led by carefull planning and superior administration.Though the length of the tournament can be reduced to give a good international window which will bring in more international players.

Lets discuss about the IPL final,I expected Rajasthan Royals to win but I supported Chennai team.My heart said CSK but my mind said RR.

Nevermind I had witnessed a tremendous match which lasted till the last ball of the match.Though Chennai could have won the final if they would have hold their nerves till the lat moment.

Kudos to Yusuf Pathan who played a blinder of innings to take RR closer to the total with lusty hitting.I feel he is going to contribute to Indian Cricket team in a big time and matured as a cricketer.

People say momentum is very important in cricket,that is the trick behind RR's success in IPL.Warne showed everyone with the kind of so called underdog resources,he portrayed a winning script with tremendous ownership among the team members.

My heart was beating too fast in the last few overs of the match and couldn't control myself with my emotions.I felt very sad when I saw CSK losing but I felt very proud for RR guys who played tremendous cricket through out the tournament.

For me as cricketer either CSK wins or RR wins,but cricket won there and gave me tremendous pleasure to witness one of the exciting games of cricket.

Waiting for the next edition of IPL with lesser matches but with lot of fun.....

South's Answer for Tendulkar

Will another Sachin Tendulkar will be there in future for Indian Team scoring big number of Hundreds ? Here is the answer from Bangalore a little Genius whom I had played with in Bangalore.

Koramangala cricket Academy had over the years produced lots of cricket players who went on to represent karantaka and India.

I strongly believe the Kid Karun Nair will make a tremendous journey into his India Career as cricketer.

What makes him unique is to notchup big hundreds and carrying his bat till the end of innings.Will post some of his pics and cricket videos soon in this blog.

List of English words of Tamil origin

The following words were directly borrowed from Tamil:
appam
from Tamil appam, (Source: OED)
cash
The primary meaning of the word cash, paper money, or money in general, comes from Latin capsa, chest. A secondary meaning of cash, referring to any of various coins used in southern India and China, comes ultimately from Tamil காசு kācu (Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
Bharatanatyam
from paratanattiyam Tamil, (Source: OED)
catamaran
from கட்டுமரம் kaṭṭumaram("kattu"=tied up, "maram"=wood) (Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
cheroot
from French cheroute, from Tamil சுருட்டு curuṭṭu, roll or rolled (Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
corundum
from a Tamil word for 'ruby', குருந்தம் kuruntam or குருவிந்தம் kuruvintam (Source: OED)
coir
from the Tamil/ Malayalam word 'kayaru' for rope or thread or to be twisted. (Source: The American Heritage Dictionary)
curry
from கறி kaṟi, sauce (Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
illupi
from Tamil iluppai, (Source: OED)
kabadi/kabaddi
from Tamil kabadi, (Source: OED)
Maldivian
from Tamil malaidhivu("malai"=mountain, "dhivu"=island), (Source: OED)
Moringa
from முருங்கை murungai , a Tamil word for drumstick (Source: OED,AHD)
mulligatawny
from மிளகுத்தண்ணீர் miḷaku-taṇṇīr from miḷaku black pepper taṇṇīr, water (Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
nadaswaram/nagaswaram
from "Nagasvaram" [Tamil], (Source: OED)
palay
from Tamil palai, (Source: OED)
palus
from Tamil palla meaning pit, (Source: OED)
pariah
from பறையர் paṟaiyar , plural of பறையன் paṟaiyaṉ (Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
pandal
from Tamil pandal, (Source: OED)
pongal
from Tamil pongal
poonga oil
from Tamil punku, oil from pungam tree, (Source: OED)
poppadom
from அப்பளம் appalam a Tamil word for a crispy side dish (Source: OED)
portia tree
from Tamil puvaracu portia tree, (Source: OED)
sambar
from Tamil sambar, (Source: OED)
sangam
from Tamil sancam, (Source: OED)
tutenag
from Tamil tuttunagam, (Source: OED)

betel
from Malayalam vettila; Tamil 'vettrilei': "vettru"=plant name + "ilei"=leaf, (Source: OED)
copra
from the Malayalam word koppara "Coconut's kernel" or Tamil கொப்பரை 'kopparai' / கொப்பறா 'koppara' or Telugu word kobbera(Source: OED, AHD, MWD)
mango
from Portuguese manga, from Malayalam manga, from Tamil 'mangaai': "ma/mang"=plant name + "kaai"=fruit.
teak
from Malayalam thekku, from Tamil 'thekku'
coir
from Malayalam kayar, from Tamil 'kayaru'

Tsunami uncovers ancient sculptures in Mahabalipuram

The December 2004 tsunami, which battered much of the south Indian coast, has helped unearth priceless relics in the ancient port city of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu. The killer waves shifted thousands of tonnes of sand to uncover granite sculptures which archaeologists claim, are remnants of a seventh-century civilisation. The sculptures include an elaborately carved lion, a half-completed elephant and a stallion in flight.

“As the tsunami waves receded, they scoured away sand deposits that had covered these sculptures for centuries,” says Alok Tripathi, an underwater archaeologist. Tripathi, who led the Archaeological Survey of India (asi) team that excavated Mahabalipuram, says the discoveries throw new light on this ancient port city, south of Chennai.

Ways of the seaMahabalipuram was an important centre of the Pallava dynasty, which held sway over much of south India between the fourth and the ninth century.

Known for its Shore Temple, the city has been designated by the unesco as a World Heritage Site. Legend has it that Mahabalipuram had six other temples — seafarers referred to it as the land of seven pagodas till even two centuries ago — which were consumed by waves (see box: Land of seven pagodas).

The city has also been the subject of much scholarly curiosity. asi had begun excavations here in 2001. But the tsunami threw a spanner in their works. Only for a brief while, however: the archaeologists got going again after a report from local fisherfolk. Just before the tsunami waves struck on December 26, 2004, the sea withdrew about 500 metres, baring its bed on which lay a temple structure and several rock sculptures, the tsunami-struck fisherfolk announced after they had recovered some of their bearings.

Once the waves subsided, asi researchers enlisted help of divers from the navy to scan the deep seas. “We found some stone structures which appear to be man-made. They are perfect rectangular blocks arranged in a clear pattern,” says Tripathi.

The investigators also found partly submerged blocks of walls, some of which extended into the land. “Our investigations showed that the partially submerged blocks and those completely under water are part of one edifice,” said Tripathi. “The blocks appear to be part of a temple wall,” the archaeologist added. Other parts of the temple that surfaced include a square garbha griha — the sanctum sanctorium — an elegant terracotta ring well and a sandstone kalash (an urn).

Standing guardThe archaeologists are, however, not ruling out other possibilities. Some of them speculate that the granite beasts uncovered by the receding waves once stood guard at a port city’s entrance. The 2-metre high lion statues, each hewn from a single piece of granite, appear breathtakingly lifelike. One great stone cat sits up alert while the other is poised to pounce. The elephant could have also been sculpted to adorn the city walls, the archaeologists believe. It now attracts scores of visitors who touch its eroded trunk as a good luck talisman.

Lions, elephants and peacocks were commonly used to decorate walls during the Pallava period, say members of the asi team. “The findings reveal Pallava grandeur,” says one of them.

The survivorWhy did these structures get submerged, while the Shore Temple stayed put for 1,300 years, withstanding even the tsunami? Tripathi has an answer. “The Shore Temple is built on bed-rock. So it survived all these years. But the other structures were constructed on sand. They could not have withstood a forceful accident,” says the archaeologist. He believes asi’s investigations in Mahabalipuram could be of immense help in protecting coastal monuments, which are threatened by the incursion of the sea.

The Harappan Civilization

Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Dravidians were the founders of the Harappan culture which extended from the Indus Valley through northeastern Afghanistan, on into Turkestan. The Harappan civilization existed from 2600-1700 BC. The Harappan civilization was twice the size the Old Kingdom of Egypt. In addition to trade relations with Mesopotamia and Iran, the Harappan city states also had active trade relations with the Central Asian peoples.

To compensate for the adverse ecological conditions, the Harappans first settled sites along the Indus river. (Fairservis 1987:48) The Dravido-Harappans occupied over 1,000 sites in the riverine Indus Valley environments where they had soil and water reserves. The Harappan sites are spread from the Indus Valley to Ai Kharnoum in northeastern Afghanistan and southward into India. In Baluchistan and Afghanistan Dravidian languages are still spoken today. Other Harappan sites have been found scattered in the regions adjacent to the Arabian sea, the Derajat, Kashmir, and the Doab.

The Indus region is an area of uncertain rains because it is located on the fringes of the monsoon. Settlers in the Indus Valley had to suffer frequent droughts and floods. Severe droughts frequently occurred in the Indus Valley so the people dug wells to insure for themselves a safe supply of water.

To compensate for the adverse ecological conditions, the Harappans settled sites along the Indus river.

The Mature Harappan civilization is divided into two variants the Sorath Harappan and the Sindhi Harappan. The Sindhi Harappan sites are sites characterized by elaborate architecture, fired brick construction, sewage systems and stamp seals. The Sindhi Harappan styles have been found in Gujarat, Kutch, the Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The major Sindhi cities include Mohenjodaro, Lothal, Rangpur, Harappa, Rangpur, Desalpur, Shirkotada, Manda, Ropar, Kalibangan and Chanhudaro.
The Sindhi Harappans possessed writing, massive brick platforms, well-digging a system of weights-and-measures, black-and-red ware (BRW), metal work and beads. (Possehl 1990:268) The Harappans were masters of hydraulic engineering.
They were a riverine people that practiced irrigation agriculture. They had both the shaduf and windmills.(Fairservis 1991) In the Harappan sites domestic quarters and industrial areas were isolated from each other.
The Sorath Harappan sites lack stamp seals, ornaments and elaborate architecture. Sorath is the ancient name for Saurashtra. The Sorath Harappan sites are located in Saurashtra, Kulli, and the Harappan style of Baluchistan and Gujarat .
The Dravido-Harappans occupied over 1,000 sites in the riverine Indus Valley environments where they had soil and water reserves. The Harappan sites are spread from the Indus Valley to Ai Kharnoum in northeastern Afghanistan and southward into India. In Baluchistan and Afghanistan Dravidian languages are still spoken today. Other Harappan sites have been found scattered in the regions adjacent to the Arabian sea, the Derajat , Kashmir and the Doab.

Harappan Boat
During the times of Sargon the Great of Sumer, Dravido-Harappan ships from Dilmun were anchored at Agade docks in Mesopotamia. The ships of Dilmun exported gold, copper utensils, lapis lazuli, ivory, beads and semiprecious stones.
Today there are isolated pockets of Dravidian speaking groups surrounded by Indo-Aryan speakers. Dravidian languages are spoken by tribal groups in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar.

HARAPPAN RELIGION
The Harappan religion was polytheistic. They used cattle, elephants and other animals to represent their gods. The Harappan seals are amulets addressed to the Harappan gods.

The gods of the Harappans depicted on their seals represented the gods of the various economic corporations in the Indus Valley. The unicorn god, probably represented Mal, while the cattle god probably represented Kali or Uma, Amma or Pravar- ti, the mother goddess.(Winters 1984,1987)
Seals have been found in almost every room at Mohenjodaro. Many of Indus seals were found in a worn condition and show signs of repair. Archaeologists have found holes on the back of the seals that indicate that the Harappans wore them tied around their neck or ankles with a string.

THE PROTO-SAHARAN RELIGIONS

By Clyde A. Winters

http://www.geocities.com/olmec982000/rel2.htm

Raja Raja Cholan -- The Great

Why Mayans are Tamils ..

Recently I read this interesting article about Mayans and their ancestral relationship with Tamils written by Gene D. Matlock .

Having reached US recently and living very close to lot of Mexicans here, I am fascinated to post this article for everyone.

http://www.viewzone.com/ancientturks.html

Note:
"Whatever things of whatever kind told by whomever it may be ,it is one's wisdom to find the truth" -- Holy Thirukural

Ancient Tamilnadu Map

MAP OF INDIA IN 30,000 B.C.
The last surviving LEMURS exist on Madagascar. This is why the ancient land tying India and Australia together, that sank incrementally over time, is referred to as LEMURIA. Myriads of ancient writings from the South Seas, and the ancient Tamil writings on palm tree bark still exist protected underground in the Vatican archives, having been pillaged from various cultures and transported to Rome by order of various popes.
The Tamil bark writings in Southern India tell of the gigantic Southern part of India which used to connect to Australia cataclysmically sinking incrementally over a long period of time. This was ancient Lemuria.

Kumari kandam...One of the subjects of great interest to me is the history of the Origin of Tamils. A quest to know where I came from? 'Who am I?'My search led me to “kumari nadu” or “kumari kandam” (also called Lemuria and Gondwanaland) believed to be the original cradle of the Tamils (or Dravidians in general) by many scholars.. and according to ancient litrature, now lying submerged in the Indian Ocean due to repeated tsunamis (kadalkol)....an artists imagination of the landmass!Some of the inputs about this land from ancient works are fascinating:The kumari nadu mainly consisted of the Pandyan Kingdom. Two wild rivers - "Kumari aaru and Prahuli aaru" flowed through the land. The distance between the two rivers was 700 kavatham (about 1000 miles). And the land was divided into Thengu nadu, Madurai nadu, Munpalai nadu, Pinpalai nadu, Kunra nadu, Kunakkarai nadu, and Kurumparai nadu, and each containing seven smaller Nadus, hence 49 in all.

Ruby was mined from the mountain Mani Malai and gold from Meru malai. The kumari mountain range had forty-eight high peaks.Something even more amazing I read was that the precious stones were mined by Chinese laborers! Iam still searching for more proof of this information.

According to Tamil litrature,the first deluge submerged Ten madurai situated by the kanni river, the seat of the first Tamil sangam and the Pandyan capital was shifted to Kabaadapuram. The Pandyan capital of kabaadapuram finds mention in the Ramayana and Chanakya's Arthasastra.

A second deluge submerged Kabaadapuram , the seat of the second Tamil sangam .Roman writer Pliny, in the second century B.C., refers to the transfer of the capital from Korkai to Madurai. The sea swallowed approximately 1,000 miles of the Pandyan territory known as "Yanainadu".

Despite so much being written about this sunken landmass, it’s a big disappointment that our Indian government has done no full fledged marine scientific research . We still depend on inputs from ancient Tamil, Roman and other scriptures to get an idea about this famed land. The Tsunami of last year is a cruel reminder that should catch the attention of marine archeologists , historians and scholars to our long lost past...I hope someday I will get a better answer to the question i put as the title today....

Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C

Here is the Translation :

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor illMan's pains and pains' relief are from within. Death's no new thing; nor do our bosoms thrillWhen Joyous life seems like a luscious draught. When grieved, we patient suffer; for, we deemThis much - praised life of ours a fragile raft Borne down the waters of some mountain streamThat o'er huge boulders roaring seeks the plain Tho' storms with lightnings' flash from darken'd skiesDescend, the raft goes on as fates ordain. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise ! -We marvel not at greatness of the great;Still less despise we men of low estate."

Tamil Poem :

யாதும் ஊரே ; யாவரும் கேளிர் ;தீதும் நன்றும் பிறர்தர வாரா ;நோதலும் தணிதலும் அவற்றோ ரன்ன ;சாதலும் புதுவது அன்றே ; வாழ்தல்இனிதுஎன மகிழ்ந்தன்றும் இலமே; முனிவின்,இன்னா தென்றலும் இலமே; ‘மின்னொடுவானம் தண்துளி தலைஇ, ஆனாதுகல்பொருது இரங்கும் மல்லற் பேர்யாற்றுநீர்வழிப் படூஉம் புணைபோல, ஆருயிர்முறைவழிப் படூஉம்’ என்பது திறவோர்காட்சியின் தெளிந்தனம் ஆகலின், மாட்சியின்பெரியோரை வியத்தலும் இலமே;சிறியோரை இகழ்தல் அதனினும் இலமே.

Under Water World

From Graham Hancock's Site :

A physical and intellectual journey, a worldwide exploration diving for the underwater ruins of a lost civilization, this book follows clues in ancient scriptures and mythlogy and in the scientific evidence of the flood that swept the Earth at the end of the last Ice Age. This text explores the question of early humans swept away by the catastrophe.

Who were these populations - pre-civilised hunter-gatherers or more sophisticated peoples altogether? The text is written as a personal adventure involving the reader in the travels, the practicalities and the risks while developing the larger themes along the way, building up to the explosive revelation of a global mystery.

Between 17,000 years ago and 7000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, terrible things happened to the world our ancestors lived in. Great ice caps over northern Europe and north America melted down, huge floods ripped across the earth, sea-level rose by more than 100 metres, and about 25 million square kilometres of formerly habitable lands were swallowed up by the waves.

Marine archaeology has been possible as a scholarly discipline for about 50 years - since the introduction of scuba. In that time, according to Nick Flemming, the doyen of British marine archaeology, only 500 submerged sites have been found worldwide containing the remains of any form of man-made structure or of lithic artefacts. Of these sites only 100 - that's 100 in the whole world! - are more than 3000 years old.

This is not because of a shortage of potential sites. It is at least partly because a large share of the limited funds available for marine archaeology goes into the discovery and excavation of shipwrecks. This leaves a shortage of diving archaeologists interested in underwater structures and a shortage of money to pay for the extremely expensive business of searching - possibly fruitlessly - for very ancient, eroded, silt-covered ruins at great depths under water. Moreover, with the recent exception of Bob Ballard's survey of the Black Sea for the National Geographic Society, marine archaeology has simply not concerned itself with the possibility that the post-glacial floods might in any way be connected to the problem of the rise of civilisations. (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0110_030113_blacksea.html)

In 1997 a chain of mountains almost 2000 kilometres long and more than 3000 metres high was discovered in the South Pacific. Nobody ever knew the mountains were there before because they are under water - as, in fact, is 70 per cent of the earth's surface. Marine archaeologists -- who are looking for targets much smaller than mountain-ranges under the sea -- can therefore be forgiven for finding just 100 submerged sites more than 3000 years old in the past half century. Even at the crude mapping level, it is one of the absurdities of scientific priorities that we now have a better map of the surface of Venus than we do of the 225 million square kilometres of our own planet's sea-floor.

On land it is obvious that archaeology still has much more work to do before it can honestly claim to have fully understood (rather than merely theorised about) the process by which the great civilisations of ancient history arose. Vast areas of the earth's surface - the Sahara Desert, for example (which was green for 4000 years at the end of the Ice Age) - have hardly benefited from the attentions of archaeologists at all. And even in countries like Egypt which have been intensively excavated for more than a century new discoveries can still be made that call established views and chronologies into question.

In December 2000 excavations at Abydos in Upper Egypt by a University of Pennsylvania/University of New York team demonstrated that the intriguing religious practise of boat burial - for example the so-called solar boat of Khufu buried on the south side of the Great Pyramid of Giza - is very likely to have predynastic origins. A fleet of 14 boats found buried at Abydos a decade ago were originally assigned to the mortuary complex of Pharaoh Khasekhemwy of the Second Dynasty (circa 2675 BC). However, after thoroughly examining one of the boats (a sophisticated narrow-prowed "sewn" boat about 23 metres long made of wooden planks lashed together with rope), the excavators now believe that "the ships were buried some centuries before Khasekhemwy's enclosure was built. The fleet may have been intended for use in the afterlife of a much earlier pharaoh, perhaps even Aha [circa 2920 BC], the First Dynasty ruler of Egypt..." (http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/abydos.html) If this is the case, since the boat-burials at Abydos are far from being the work of beginners, then it seems obvious that the practise -- and the entire wonderful religious apparatus that goes with it -- must predate the First Dynasty.

But by how much?

Nobody knows.

Another interesting development also announced in December 2000 was the discovery of a group of very unusual ancient tombs at Elkab in Upper Egypt. The Elkab tombs are thought to date to the Second Dynasty, although the site itself has yielded evidence of continuous occupation from 8000 years ago until about 2000 years ago. The tombs are circular stone structures (with diameters of 18 to 20 metres) which in two cases were carefully arranged around large natural boulders. They have been compared with the Neolithic funeral mounds of Europe and, as the Belgian excavators admit, are of a type "thus far unknown in Egypt". (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/science/archaeology/egyptdawn121200.htm)

So much then for the archaeologists having the whole picture about the evolution and development of any civilisation - even ancient Egypt which has been the subject of more archaeological investigation than any other.

But now let's remember as well that along continental margins and around islands across the world an area bigger than the Unites States of America was inundated at the end of the Ice Age: 3 million square kilometres (an area the size of India) was submerged around Greater Australia alone; another 3 million square kilometres went under around South-East Asia; the Florida, Yucatan and Grand Bahama Banks were fully-exposed off the Gulf of Mexico; huge areas of land were swallowed up in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the North Sea and the Atlantic, etc, etc, etc - the list really does goes on and on.

In my view the possibility of a serious "black hole" in scientific knowledge about recent prehistory is plausible, reasonable and worthy of consideration. I therefore propose that the conclusions of modern archaeology regarding the origins and early evolution of human civilisation should be treated as provisional until a comprehensive, global, marine-archaeological survey of continental shelves down to depths of at least 120 metres has been undertaken.