(History with Kayleigh) Premiered March 17, 2025: Researching the origins of language, can we pinpoint when language first emerged? What do other great apes reveal about their use of language, and how does that tie into our own evolution and development of language? Let's find out. SPONSOR: AirLearn now: airlearn.onelink.me...
What's the oldest language in the world? The Tamil language from the Buddhist island of Sri Lanka (aka Eelam, the land of the Tamil Tigers, for which the longest civil war in Asia was fought), Southern India (Tamil Nadu), and Singapore (though surely Sanskrit must be much older than that)
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This video plays fast and loose with the facts. For example, No. 20 states that the Na tree, or Ceylon Ironwood, was the tree under which THE Buddha attained enlightenment. That is completely wrong and an egregious error because the actual tree under which Siddhartha the Buddha Gautama awakened under a tree that lives on the island, known as the Bodhi tree -- at least a cutting of the original tree from Bihar (proto-India). That tree is destroyed, but its direct ancestor lives on: Mesua ferrea.
Four earlier buddhas had as their enlightenment tree the Na tree, but not THE Buddha, the Buddha of our time, the historical Shakyamuni. Visiting his tree is a tree because it is enormous and hallowed and the oldest historically attested tree in the world: Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi Tree
The lovely and massive Buddha statue in Enlightenment Grove, Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India.
The oldest settlements in South India: The Keeladi excavations
(Storytrails) Premiered March 6, 2023. CHENNAI (Madras), India - How old are the oldest settlements in South India?
What did the recent excavations at Keeladi (aka Keezhadi) and other places along the Vaigai and Porunai (Thamirabarani) rivers reveal?
For a long time, it was believed that South India had no ancient urban civilizations like in the north [where the Indus Valley Civilization and the Vedic Civilization thrived near Gandhara, now in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which were formerly parts of the Indian Empire].
While the Sangam Period (dated 300 BCE–300 CE) literature talks of a sophisticated Tamilcivilization, there was no concrete archeological proof to back it up…until the path-finding/groundbreaking Keeladi excavations that started in 2015.
A series of digs carried out by the Archaeological Survey of India in a little village near Madurai unearthed artifacts dating back at least to the 6th century BCE [the time of the Buddha].
This included pottery fragments with graffiti marks very similar to the Indus Valley Civilization script.
But Keeladi isn’t the first or only place to offer evidence of ancient settlements in Tamil Nadu.
Adichanallur, Korkai, Pallavaram, Attirampakkam, and many more sites have produced an array of amazing artifacts over the last 100 years or so, including the oldest human tool to be ever discovered in India -- a hand-axe that was discovered in Pallavaram, part of present-day Chennai.
It’s only in recent years that the pieces of the jigsaw have started coming together. Archeologists believe that many more exciting discoveries, possibilities, and answers are waiting to be found at this site.
Editing credits: Studio A, Chennai
Music, Sound Design, Mix & Master: Vishwi (vishwimusic.com)
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"Being able to sit in meaninglessness without losing a basic belief in meaning, it's a little bit tricky to do. But I think to have a worldview that says, 'At my core I believe that life is meaningful. I don't see it right now. I can't grasp it right now, but I believe that eventually I will."
—Dr. Sherry Walling, Ph.D.
(Sounds True) As a therapist, Dr. Sherry Walling knew all the "right" things to say to help people in grief. But when she lost her father to cancer and her brother to suicide within six months of each other, she had the unfortunate chance to encounter two types of mourning up close — the slowly unfolding terminal illness and the sudden and stigmatized death by suicide.
She had a profound realization: We’re getting grief all wrong.
In this podcast, Sounds True Founder and Host Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Walling about her new book, Touching Two Worlds: A Guide for Finding Hope in the Landscape of Loss, and how we each have the power "to go all the way into our grief to find where it lands with love."
Tune in for this compassionate conversation on:
Navigating the duality that exists on the opposite spectrums of our lives
The healing practice of writing about our experiences of grief
Overcoming the stigma and silence around suicide
The just-world hypothesis and how traumatic events change our view
Accepting limitations in life while taking responsibility for finding our own sense of meaning
Accessing a sense of calm and grace to release the unresolved shock of grief
Finding closure versus the place "where grief lands with love"
"With so many of the folks that I work with when they encounter their own grief," explains Dr. Walling, "it takes them down a dark, deep tunnel. And I'm hoping that by sharing a little bit of my own submersion in that world... I hope they'll know a little bit about what it takes to move through those feelings, to embrace those feelings, and to find their joy in the middle of those feelings."
If anyone is experiencing grief that is painfully recent or in the more distant past, we hope that this week’s conversation brings comfort and support.
With you on the journey,
Your friends at Sounds True
P.S. Discover more about Sherry Walling and her new book, Touching Two Worlds: A Guide for Finding Hope in the Landscape of Loss.
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There are things inside this pyramid that defy all logic! Ancient Secret Discoveries thinks that this explains everything. Let's have a look into the Great Pyramid of Giza (Kheops) to see what has been found.
(Bhikkhu Dipa) Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan (Dec. 22, 1887-April 26, 1920) was an Indian mathematician and autodidact who lived during the time of the British Raj. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions.
The movie The Man Who Knew Infinity is about the Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, who is generally viewed by mathematicians as one of the two most romantic figures in the discipline.
Ramanujan (1887-1920) was born and died in Southern India, passing away at the age of 32. [Suicide?] But in one of the most extraordinary events in mathematical history, he spent World War I at Trinity College Cambridge at the invitation of the leading British mathematician Godfrey Harold (G. H.) Hardy (1877-1947) and his great collaborator John E. Littlewood.
Brahmin wisdom comes from space
As a boy he refused to learn anything but mathematics, almost entirely self-taught, and his pre-Cambridge work is contained in a series of notebooks.
The work he did after returning to India in 1919 is contained in the misleadingly named Lost Notebook. It was lost and later found in the Wren library of the leading college for mathematics of the leading University in England. While in England Ramanujan became the first Indian Fellow both of Trinity and of the Royal Society.
Ramanujan had an extraordinary ability to see patterns. While he rarely proved his results, he left a host of evaluations of sums and integrals. He was especially expert in a part of number theory called modular forms which is of even more interest today than when he died.
The lost notebook initiated the study of mock theta functions that are only now being fully understood. Fleshing out his notebooks has only recently been completed principally by American mathematicians Prof. Bruce Berndt and Prof. George Andrews. It comprises thousands of printed pages.
An old Indian friend, Swami Swaminathan, oversaw the Ramanujan Library in Madras (modern Mumbai, India) over half a century ago. He commented that had Ramanujan been born ten years earlier, he would not have been able to receive the education and financial assistance that made his pre-Cambridge work possible.
Swaminathan went on to say that had Ramanujan been born just ten years later, he would probably have received a more robust and more ordinary education. In either case, this version of Ramanujan would not exist.
Ramanujan and Me
Ramanujan has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My father David was a student of one of Hardy’s students. In our house “the Bible” referred to Hardy’s masterpiece Divergent Series.
In 1962 on the 75th anniversary of Ramanujan’s birth the envelope (below) arrived at my parents' home. A kind stranger had put the franked stamps on the back.
In 1987 I was fortunate enough to speak with my brother at the major centennial conference on Ramanujan, held at the University of Illinois. We had become experts on and had extended Ramanujan’s work on Pi.
Highlights at the conference included the Nobel prize winning astronomer Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who described how important Ramanujan’s success in England had been to the self-confidence of himself and the co-founders (along with Mahatma Gandhi) of modern India including Jawaharlal Nehru, who became the first prime minister of independent India in 1947.
In 2008 David Leavitt published a novelized version of Ramanujan’s life entitled the Indian Clerk. While Leavitt captures much beautifully, as a novelist, he takes some considerable liberties. I prefer my novels as fables and my biographies straight.
In 2012 on the 125th anniversary of Ramanujan’s birth the Notices of the American Mathematical Society published eight articles on his work. This suite forcibly showed how Ramanujan’s reputation and impact continue to grow.
Gifted with Numbers
There is one famous anecdote about Ramanujan that even a non-mathematician can appreciate. In 1917 Ramanujan was hospitalized in London. He was said to have tuberculosis, but it is more likely this was to cover a failed suicide attempt.
Hardy took a cab to visit him. Not being very good at small talk, all Hardy could think to say was that the number of his cab, 1729, was uninteresting.
Ramanujan replied that quite to the contrary it was the smallest number expressible as a sum of two cubes in two distinct ways:
Buddhist nations, like northern Bhutan and southern SriLanka, have painful histories: American know-how teaches governments how to brainwash entire populations.
(Journeyman Pictures, May 1994) Since 1990, tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalese have been driven out of the tiny and secretive Himalayan (Naga) kingdom of Bhutan.
Bernays: the American "Assassin of Democracy"
Bhutan is ruled by a minority of Tibetan descent. Many have fled to refugee camps in Nepal where they tell a harrowing tale of Bhutan's attempts to clear the country of Nepalese-speaking people.
Young men are imprisoned and tortured and are freed only if they sign a "voluntarily leaving [the country]" certificate. The ethnic Nepalese make up 50 percent of Bhutan's population and some have lived there for many generations.
The Nepalese Prime Minister hopes that the people will one day be allowed to return.
We go as tourists to Bhutan, to glean further evidence of the way ethnic Nepalese are treated, and find a country trapped in time where even TV sets are illegal.
"It is unbelievable that SriLanka -- which practices Buddhism mainly, the preaching of which is not to even cause hurt to an ant -- was united in its cry to annihilate a good proportion of its [Indian Tamil Hindu] population. And this is what we are celebrating today." How about this for a bon mot from the Daily News? “Simple, solemn ceremony marks President’s swearing-in: President MahindaRajapaksa took oaths yesterday for a second term as president before Chief Justice Asoka..."
BENGALURU, India - The guru's sex scandal continues to grow. As controversial "godman" Swami Nithyananda was slapped with a notice by the Karnataka government for land-related violations, another of his ashrams (in the state of Andhra Pradesh) was vandalized today by locals protesting the Swami's sexual misdemeanors.
Villagers shouted slogans against the [hypocritical guru] and tore down huge cut-outs outside the ashram near Shamshabad airport in Hyderabad, India. They urged the Andhra Pradesh government to take over the ashram.
There was more trouble for the sexy Swami -- who is on the run with his actress lover -- as he was served notice on his ashram near Bidadi for violating the Land Reforms Act. Nithyananda has been missing since his sex video scandal broke last week. Footage shows him in a compromising position with a Tamil actress....On the mysterious death of a Canadian devotee in the ashram, Nithyananda reiterated what was said earlier by the ashram, which was that the death was an accident.
Nithyananda also discounted allegations that young boys were being held captive in the ashram: "Everybody is there willingly. If they want to leave, they are free to leave," he insisted. Home Minister V.S. Acharya said action would be taken against the Swami once police in the state of Tamil Nadu transfer cases filed against him in Chennai.
Both the Home Minister and the Chief Minister, however, expressed regret over the repeated telecast of the sex video. They felt that it did not go well with the country's rich [spiritual] traditions. "It does not adhere to our culture," the Chief Minister said. Source
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A 25-year civil war in Buddhist island of Sri Lanka has been brought to a decisive conclusion. It was launched by ethnic Tamil separatists tormented under majority Sinhalese rule. After decades, the guerrilla war ended as "Buddhist X-mas" (Vesak) celebrations continued around the world.
Once aided, abetted, and to a greater or lesser extent instigated by India, the Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) behaved like an unpredictable tiger: It and its legendary leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, assassinated the Indian prime minister.
More horrifying was the fact that a Sri Lankan head of state was found secretly supporting the LTTE in an effort to play both side and maintain power. The LTTE assassinated him in return. International attempts to intervene led to an uneasy peace over the years with sporadic fighting and ongoing guerrilla tactics. These included massacres of Buddhist pilgrims, surprise Tamil offensives, and the imposition of martial law in terrorizing "counter-terrorism" efforts. It was the excessive use of state power that originally encouraged Tamils to rebel.
Recent Sinhalese offensives have collaterally killed many Tamil civilians. The Tamils fear the state more than their fellow freedom fighters. It is also alleged that Tamils used civilians as shields. In either case, Sri Lankan soldiers seemed content to disregard imperiled civilians. In modern warfare as taught by the USA, noncombatants are treated like combatants.
The Sri Lankan army pressed forward in a deadly offensive that finally broke Tamil rebel resistance. LTTE controlled territory was wrested from Tamil control. Little, however, has been done to appease Tamil pleas for fair and equal treatment in Sri Lankan society. Many expat Tamils have been visible and vocal protesters keeping world attention on the calamity, notably in Europe and Canada.
Sri Lanka is a small teardrop shaped island off the southern tip of India with a large Sinhalese majority and a prominent, long standing Tamil minority. The Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with a large Tamil majority, lies just across a narrow strait. The island has a long history of British and European colonization; these powers set ethnic factions one against the other throughout Asia and the new world. (This conflict, too, is part of the appalling legacy of the UK's divisive strategy that infamously kept it in power for centuries).
It is notable that this conflict did not come to an end through American aid or support. It was funded by the Chinese government, who provided the support Sinhalese forces needed to wage a large offensive that ended with the execution of Tamil leaders. It is not clear what India or the US gained by this longstanding civil war, but it is clear they did little to actually end it.
WQ sympathizes with the Sri Lankan government. However, this nominally "Buddhist" power has frequently not behaved as such. In no way can WQ believe that Hindus in general or Tamils in particular are enemies. Although this has never been a religious conflict, it has correlated to religious sentiments along ethnic lines.
Calls for civic equality -- whether as a separate state or some equivalent accommodation -- must be heeded. So conscience forces WQ to criticize both sides after a visit to the conflict in support of all its citizens. As a Buddhist-majority island, Sri Lanka has long welcomed all faiths.
Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE) was declared killed by the Sri Lankan government on May 18. He had decades to think about how his end would come. It could have come from the cyanide capsule that he -- like many Tiger fighters -- wore around his neck, a pledge to commit suicide in case of capture by the Sri Lankan Army.
He had been fighting a war for an independent homeland, or eelam, for the island's Tamil minority since 1983. The army pursued him throughout the jungles of the north and east for decades. In 2002, during a press conference near the beginning of a four-year ceasefire, Prabhakaran revealed that he had asked his aides to kill him if capture was near and he was unable to kill himself. More>>
Tamil Tiger rebels have laid down their arms after 25 years of separatist fighting. Thus, the war in Buddhist Sri Lanka has effectively come to an end. Peace talks to ensue at the discretion of the Sinhalese majority government.
India enters stable phase of governance under the same family that once aided and came to regret backing the Tamil insurgency in the first place.
Peace Breaks out on Buddhist Island of Sri Lanka
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government Sunday, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast.
The government rejected the last-ditch call for a cease-fire, saying the thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone all have escaped to safety and there was no longer any reason to stop the battle. The military said the remaining guerrillas were still fighting.
With a war that has killed well over 70,000 people nearing its end, Sri Lankans poured into the streets in spontaneous celebration. President Mahinda Rajapaksa scheduled a nationally televised news conference for Tuesday morning at Parliament, where he was expected to tell the nation the war was over.
The fate of the Tamil Tigers' top commanders remained unclear, including the whereabouts of the reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
A senior military official said troops found the bodies of several rebel fighters who had committed suicide Sunday when troops surrounded them. The bodies were suspected of being Prabhakaran and his deputies, but the military was still trying to confirm their identities, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The rebels, who once controlled a wide swath of the north, have been routed by government forces in recent months. On Sunday, Tamil Tiger suicide bombers targeted troops clearing out the last pockets of rebel resistance in the war zone and troops killed at least 70 rebels trying to flee by boat, the military said. More>>
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