We are in the year 1100 AD. The word rocket isn’t even thought of in the English language. Much later in 1232 AD, once the Angkors were nearly 90 years old, the Chinese during the battle of Kai-Keng, would be using arrows of flying fire, the rockets, against Mongols – (Chinese again!). Caltech and MIT are not even remotely …
Engineering a Project; the Largest, Ever & Anywhere Read More »
Apsaras form a significant part of the mythology of Churning of the Ocean. Tanny, my guide told me there were nearly 1800 figures of Apsaras alone within the Wat, all with distinctively different delicate facial features, different finery & attires, hairdo and distinctively different jewelry and facial expressions – both facial expression as also bodily …
In Indian philosophy, life and death are two stations in the passage of life. Both are certainties. Through death one yearns release from the tethering of life; again & yet again. That release can happen through Knowledge. Two men of the recent era come to mind almost with reflex action when we think of men …
Undoubtedly, they, the wise men & women of yore, did create a magnet for people of the future times to behold and learn from that creation. Vagaries of weather, marauding enemies of humanity and disease & shortages took their toll, undoubtedly. But, all isn’t lost, as yet. People of all nationalities, faiths & religions throng …
Some of the topics Zhou Daguan addressed in his account are those of religion, justice, kingship, agriculture, slavery, birds, vegetables, bathing, clothing, tools, draft animals, and commerce. In one passage, he described a royal procession consisting of soldiers, numerous servant women and concubines, ministers and princes, and finally, “the sovereign, standing on an elephant, holding …
As I stand before these magnificent abodes of Gods or shall I say – Divinity, a concerned mind is stirred; stirred & churned constantly by something that it desires to learn regards – just what brought Angkor to the current state? Is it the man himself who built these magnificent temples? Or something more, much more …
33 years is long enough time to wait and go visit the Holy Temples of Angkor Wat; from the time that one first came to learn of those most awe-inspiring marvels. But as over the past three decades, I went about my career in the Indian Army, somewhere deep within there always was an amber …