Tiger Dance (Wutu in China)

Chinese Wutu "Tiger Dance" (Reuters/National Geographic)

Qinghai, China, December 17, 2008 -- Aptly patterned men perform the Wutu, or "Tiger," dance, meant to dispel disease and exorcise evil, in the Chinese village of Nianduhu. This ancient ritual is performed every winter and is based on a local legend. A princess fell ill, the story goes, and neither medicine nor magic could cure her, according to chinaculture.org. The king had his soldiers take off their clothes, paint their bodies, and dance to exorcise the princess's demons. She recovered.

Temple of Mice

Sharon Guynup and Nicolas Ruggia (Nat'l Geographic Channel)

RATS RULE AT INDIAN TEMPLE -- The floors are a living tangle of undulating fur. Small, brown blurs scurry across marble floors. Thousands of rats dine with people and scamper over their feet.

Temple featured in Tori Amos's iconoclastic song "God"

It may sound like a nightmare from the New York City subway to some, but in India's small northwestern city of Deshnoke, this is a place of worship: Rajastan's famous Karni Mata Temple.

This ornate, isolated Hindu temple was constructed by Maharaja Ganga Singh in the early 1900s as a tribute to the rat goddess, Karni Mata. Intricate marble panels line the entrance and the floors, and silver and gold decorations are found throughout.

But by far the most intriguing aspect of the interior is the 20,000-odd rats that call this temple home. These holy animals are called kabbas, and many people travel great distances to pay their respects.

The legend goes that Karni Mata, a mystic matriarch from the 14th century, was an incarnation of Durga, the goddess of power and victory. At some point during her life, the child of one of her clansmen died. She attempted to bring the child back to life, only to be told by Yama, the god of death, that he had already been reincarnated.

Karni Mata cut a deal with Yama: From that point forward, all of her tribespeople would be reborn as rats until they could be born back into the clan.

In Hinduism, death marks the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one on the path to a soul's eventual oneness with the universe. This cycle of transmigration is known as Samsara and is precisely why Karni Mata's rats are treated like royalty.

Gautam Ghosh, professor of anthropology and Asian studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, noted how rare this rat-worshipping temple is. "In India, as in the West, rats aren't treated with particular veneration."

In Hinduism, many deities take animals forms. "The main theological point is that there's no dividing line between what forms gods or goddesses can use," said Rachel Fell McDermott, professor of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures at Barnard College in New York City. "There's nothing to say they can't take form as a fish, a bird, or even a rat." More>>

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"Photograph" of the Buddha?

In Search Of (Part I) Spirit Photography?

There exists a curious image of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. It was reputedly taken or at least discovered in Bodhgaya, India, in 1980. A devotee, it is said, was photographing the site of Shakyamuni's ("Sage of the Shakyas") great enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. The image, not seen at the time of photographing, subsequently appeared on the film.

It is an image of a very comely young meditator with a top knot, robe, and almost cosmetic details. The photograph has not been widely circulated. It may inspire the faithful or arouse doubt. One copy hangs at the Bhavana Society, a Theravadan monastery/nunnery in West Virginia, for all to see.

Photos taken in Bodh Gaya showed this image when developed.

How would a recent "photograph" of an ancient figure be possible? Leonard Nimoy offers a fascinating explanation of the phenomenon.

In Search Of (Part II) Deva Hoax in England?

In Search Of (Part III) Man makes photographs with his mind in controlled experiments

Jesus (Saint Issa) in India

A short film about the lost years of Jesus (Issa) not explained in the Bible

Loving-kindness "Prayer"

Metta Bhavana, wording by Dharmachari Seven



May all living beings be well
May all living beings be happy
May all living beings be well and happy

Happiness is coming to them
Happiness is being brought on by them
They are making others happy

They are enjoying a healthy, happy, and prosperous present

Moreover, they are joyfully developing

• Forbearance
• Virtue (sila)
• Samadhi and
• Noble wisdom

as they meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, hardships, and setbacks in life.

May all living beings long continue to be well
May all living beings long continue to be happy
May all living beings long continue to be well and happy!

Compassion "Medicine"

Dharmachari Seven (Buddhist advice to a very fearful young woman)

There are only four reasons why you have ever and will ever feel hurt, grief, psychological discomfort, or emotional distress. Only four. Whatever you feel in terms of unhappiness or suffering, it is only because it is rooted in one or some combination of these four. What four?

• Greed (grabbiness, yearning, craving, hankering, and pining)
• Hate (anger, unfriendliness, compassionlessness, resentment)
• Delusion (wrong views, mental distortions, thought aberrations)
• Fear (a kind of Hate, which is both the root of anger and cowardice)

The good thing is that each of these roots has an antidote, a "medicine." Interestingly -- and to get straight to the point of delivering this medicine right where it's needed at this moment -- both anger and Fear are in a way the same thing, because they have the same root.

Now, you see no Hate/anger in you, none that you're aware of anyway, none that you dare let express itself? You're like a fluttering fairy, a waif, a deva, a wispy...well you get the idea. That's not to say there is no Hate, no root of "anger," present. It's there all right! But its manifestation is the more socially acceptable, the more culturally feminine Fear. (Think about it, why are Fear and Hate said to be the same, what's their commonality? Revulsion).

For example, men are taught not to have Fear or certainly never to show it if they do. It's not masculine. So when they see a mouse, filled with revulsion, they attack it. Their revulsion is expressed as Hate (anger, fighting with, and attacking that "disgusting" mouse).

Women, however, are taught not to have Hate or certainly never to show it if they do. So when they see a mouse, filled with revulsion, they jump on a chair (and scream for someone to come help them, or just wait till the mouse goes away, alarmed by the screaming and shrieking). Women may even faint or enter a "fugue state," which is an odd response in the presence of a Fearful thing.

But it makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint (the instinctive and genetically-coded way humans have adapted and survived from the time of cavemen and cavewomen). We have three automatic reactions to Fear: fight, flight, or freeze. Guess which one your body is in the habit of exhibiting?

And wouldn't it be better, more beneficial, not to "react" automatically but to respond purposefully? That way we can be in control of our lives rather than Fear or circumstances being in control.

Seeing a mouse, knowing it only to be a mouse, a cute little critter with precious little whiskers and a dew drop of a nose, cousin-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks of the adorable hamster -- we can choose to tolerate it, shoo it away, give it some food to go outside, buy one of those silent high frequency repellers, spray cat urine scented mist near its cubbyhole, catch and release it in the woods with a mercy trap, or... Did you know there were so many other things you could do instead of fight, flight, or freeze?

End of the Dollar (the new Amero)

Hal Turner

The future of the US economy is in doubt with an economy-destroying, economy-resuscitating plan: the launch of the "Amero," a new North American currency. (NAFTA had ulterior motives behind it). Watch all your savings evaporate in an instant. Here's what you can do about it.

See Buddhist "end of the world" scenario in previous posts. This is one of the many sociopolitical upheavals in the Kali Yuga ("Age of Decline"). And if one were to end up bone broke, there is still the enduring Dharma to fall back on. So practice now, practice then, and practice in the future until safely in the realm of devas ("shining ones," light-body beings).

Burma in the News

• Burma Arrests 19 North Korean Defectors, Kids Included Fox News - Sat Dec 20
  Burmese authorities arrested 19 North Korean defectors in a town near the border with Thailand, a government official said Saturday.
  
  News
• Myanmar arrests 19 North Korean defectors: police AFP - Sat Dec 20
  
• Myanmar authorities have arrested 19 defectors from their ally North Korea and plan to charge them with illegally entering the country, a senior police official said Saturday.

• UN slams N. Korean on rights; Defending regime were China, Cuba, Iran, Burma, Russia, Venezuela, Syria World Tribune - Fri Dec 19
  December 19, 2008 - UN slams N. Korean on rights; defending regime were China, Cuba, Iran, Burma, Russia, Venezuela, Syria
  
  EU provides extra 40 million euros in aid to Myanmar AFP - Thu Dec 18
  The European Commission on Thursday decided give an extra 40.5 million euros (58.7 million dollars) in aid for two million vulnerable people in Myanmar, notably those affected by cyclone Nargis in May.
  
  Burmese Lawyer Flees, Speaks Out Radio Free Asia - Thu Dec 18
  A Burmese lawyer now in exile says authorities tortured evidence out of his clients.

• EU provides 40 million euros in aid to Myanmar Nasdaq - Thu Dec 18
  (RTTNews) - The European Commission's Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) will spend 22 million euros ($31million) in aid for two million vulnerable people in Myanmar, especially those affected by cyclone Nargis in May.

• MYANMAR: Myanmar journalists face intimidation, pressure from junta AsiaMedia - Thu Dec 18
  Journalists working in military-ruled Myanmar continue to face intimidation, torture and arrests in reporting on the country's corrupt and brutal regime, despite international calls for more press freedom, a conference on media safety heard Tuesday.

• UN chief criticizes Myanmar and Zimbabwe AP - Wed Dec 17
  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the governments of Myanmar and Zimbabwe Wednesday and said a year of multiple crises has put human rights on trial.

• [ELD] MISSOURI: Mission team will spend Christmas in Sudan / TENNESSEE: Myanmar refugees bring Adven Worldwide Faith News - Fri Dec 19

• AI Bulletin Vol.11 No.24, 19 December 2008 Amnesty International - Sat Dec 20

MORE:

Burma on Yahoo! News

Kung Fu Monks

National Geographic TV


Inside a Shaolin boot camp

Kung fu (literally, "hard work") evolved to become a Mahayana Buddhist monastic discipline. National Geographic TV investigates.

Garuda vs. Naga (this world)

VIDEO: Red-Tailed Hawk vs. Rattler (Nat'l Geographic)

Buddhist History Revolution: Ranajit Pal

Ranajit Pal, Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander. New Delhi: Minerva Press, 2002. Pp. 268, including 41 black- and-white illustrations. ISBN 81-7662-032-7. US$17.00, UK£11.75. Further Details.

Reviewer: Jan-Mathieu Carbon, Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Self-described as a colloquial "must for the history buff" and a pleonastic "labour of hard work" (back cover), Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander by Ranajit Pal is indeed both of these things -- a work at once fascinatingly suggestive, pioneering, and provocative, yet frustratingly confused and laborious. The main subject is Alexander's conquest of India, specifically locating Palibothra, the theoretical limit of his march east.

Pal in this book leads his own campaign west against those scholars, particularly Badian and his disciples, who ignore the Sanskrit and Pali sources and try to reconstruct Alexander's eastern campaign using only the Greek and Roman texts.[[1]]

He traces the origin of this methodological problem back to the work of Sir William Jones in the late eighteenth century.[[2]] Few scholars today think in an explicitly "Jonesian" framework, but Pal is right that the usual accounts of Alexander's march are founded on Jones' early premises and detective work.

Pal's hypothesis is that "Megasthenes" Palibothra was not Patna as Jones fancied, but Kahnuj in faraway Magan' (p. 9). In other words, Palibothra was located in what is now south-east Iran, not, as most scholars maintain, in modern eastern India.

As a provocative challenge to current orthodoxy regarding the extent of Alexander's Indian conquest the book is largely successful and will appeal to specialists and students alike. Pal's work is wide-ranging and offers multifarious perspectives on the impact of Alexander's conquests in Indo-Iran. More>>

Anti-Brahmanism

Sakka as "Lord Indra, King of the Gods" in the Rig Veda. Razmanama MS, Akbar School, 1598.

Mantras of Anti-Brahmanism: Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals

hinduwisdom.com

"Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter" - A Christmas Sermon 1891.

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Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) Well known post civil war American political speechmaker and Secular-Humanist. Among his admirers were president James Garfield, poet Walt Whitman, General Ulysses S. Grant, industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, inventor Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain.

Refer to Proving that Bible is Repulsive VIDEO: godisimaginary.com.

***

Opposing factions in the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy in the 19th century shared a common understanding of Indian religion and society. Europeans from diverse ideological and religious backgrounds identified the brahmins as priests and Brahmanism as a "religion of the priests." This common understanding derived its consistency from a Christian understanding of religion. Even the writings of Rammohun Roy and Babasaheb Ambedkar, this article suggests, reveal an unconditional acceptance of Europe's conceptualization in a debate over religion that continued into the 20th century.

Anglicists considered India to be corrupt. They believed that its culture was degenerate and its population irrational, retarded, superstitious, and morally depraved. The Orientalists, on the other hand, genuinely sought to understand the foreign culture. Surely, they wanted to bring reform. But they were certain that a transformation could only be successful if it resonated with the mores of the natives. Hence, they studied the Indian culture, learned its local languages, collected and preserved what belonged to its cultural inheritance, and discovered a grand past that presented an India excelling in the political, social, religious, and intellectual domains.

However, we would like to highlight that they turn out to be superficial when it comes to the assessment of the fundamental structure of the Indian society. Unerringly, both identified brahmins as the "priests." They both were convinced that these "priests" had a negative influence on religion and society. Brahmins were held responsible for the creation and sanctification of the caste system, which brought social development to a halt. They accepted as true that this system consisted of a rigid social compartmentalization and that it was created to preserve religious and social privileges of the brahmin caste. They were convinced that the brahmins used their religious authority to dominate those in civil power which explained why the system of hierarchical castes was not contested by those in power as well, and so on.

If there were differences between Orientalists and Anglicists in this regard, they were very shallow. Anglicists found Indian culture and society intrinsically corrupt from the very beginning. Orientalists, however, saw India’s culture as being based on sound principles which steadily degenerated. But the cause of corruption, however, was in both cases the same, that is, "Brahmanism."

In this article, we propose that both the idea of religious degeneration and the role played by the priests in this process are derived from deep seated Christian conceptions of religion. On the one hand, the biblical story of a god-given religion that was subsequently corrupted through the course of time was the general framework that structured the history of Christianity and of all the other so-called religions. On the other hand, because Christianity assigned a primary role to the clergy, religion was an affair of the priests only.

Consequently, the mechanism of degeneration had to be found in the priesthood: priests became the instruments of the devil and began to transform the original god-given religion. This understanding of religion, we would like to suggest, structured the European quest for the "religious" elsewhere. Brahmins were identified as "priests," who created "brahmanism," which was imposed upon Indian society.

If this suggestion is convincing, the prevalence of Europe’s conceptualization in the modern Indian intellectual’s reflection on his own society is nothing but remarkable. Even though there existed a long tradition of criticism of brahmins and caste in India itself, Rammohun Roy, for example, while criticising contemporary brahmanism vigorously, merely echoed the assessment of the British. Similarly, Babasaheb Ambedkar did the same a century later when he took up its sacerdotal invention of caste along familiar lines. By doing so, both accepted exactly that which Orientalists and Anglicists shared: they ended up criticizing "brahmins" as "priests" and "brahmanism" as a deprived "religion of the priests."

(Source: Mantras of Anti-Brahmanism by Raf Gelders, Willem Derde). Refer to Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress by Howard Zinn

• Mirroring: A Glorious Hindu Legacy: Indic influence in Southeast Asia (http://www.hinduwisdom.com/)

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Scientists find hole in Earth's magnetic field

View of the Sahara desert in 2003. British and Moroccan scientists have found the remains of two new species of extinct animals in the Saharan desert, describing the find as one of the most important of the past 50 years (AFP/File/Hocine Zaourar).

LOS ANGELES – Recent satellite observations have revealed the largest breach yet seen in the magnetic field that protects Earth from most of the sun's violent blasts, researchers reported Tuesday. The discovery was made last summer by Themis, a fleet of five small NASA satellites.

Scientists have long known that the Earth's magnetic field, which guards against severe space weather, is similar to a drafty old house that sometimes lets in violent eruptions of charged particles from the sun. Such a breach can cause brilliant auroras or disrupt satellite and ground communications.

Observations from Themis show the Earth's magnetic field occasionally develops two cracks, allowing solar wind — a stream of charged particles spewing from the sun at 1 million mph — to penetrate the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Last summer, Themis calculated a layer of solar particles to be at least 4,000 miles thick in the outermost part of the Earth's magnetosphere, the largest tear of the protective shield found so far.

"It was growing rather fast," Themis scientist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley told an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Such breaches are temporary, and the one observed last year lasted about an hour, Oieroset said.

Solar flares are a potential danger to astronauts in orbit but generally are not a risk to people on the surface of the Earth.

The research was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Scientists initially believed the greatest solar breach occured when the Earth's and sun's magnetic fields are pointed in opposite directions. But data from Themis found the opposite to be true. Twenty times more solar wind passed into the Earth's protective shield when the magnetic fields were aligned, Oieroset said.

The Themis results could have bearing on how scientists predict the severity of solar storms and their effects on power grids, airline, and military communications and satellite signals.

The Themis satellites were launched to find the source of brief powerful geomagnetic disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere.
___
On the Net:
American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org/
Themis mission: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/main/index.html

• Seed bank project
• New Species found in Sahara

The End of the World

There are modern-day prophets and the "prophecies" of the Buddha, which were more a discerning of a natural order of cyclical events. How worlds arise, how they end, and what takes place in between -- while the names and faces may change -- seen for the most part regular. The more things change the more they stay the same. Here the Parowan Prophet makes another failed prediction of the end times.

Prophet Predicts U.S. Will Be Nuked by Christmas

Dec 15, 2008: Riots in the United States will begin before Christmas as a result of Barack Obama winning the presidential election. The old, hard-line Soviet guard will jump on the opportunity and nuke us, killing 100 million people or more. So goes the prophecy of Leland Freeborn of Parowan, Utah, known by a small group of followers as the Parowan Prophet. Los Angeles Times reporter Peter H. King traveled to Freeborn's home to get details.

Freeborn, a survivalist who keeps iodine handy in order to ward off the effects of radiation, admits to issuing inaccurate doomsday prophecies before. It's not an exact science, he allows.

Among the successful predictions Freeborn claims to have made: O.J. Simpson's murder acquittal and Al Gore's winning of the popular vote in 2000, he told King.

King describes Freeborn: "A Mormon of substance, a father of 12, he had crashed his airplane in 1975 and fallen into a three-week coma, during which he went through 'to the other side' and emerged a prophet."

Failed doomsday predictions are nothing new. As LiveScience's Bad Science columnist Ben Radford points out: "There have been thousands of people predicting the imminent end of the world, dating back to at least 2800 B.C. They have all been wrong." Radford has written extensively about people who claim to predict the future. He says the predictions are often rooted in Bible passages, as seems to be the case with Freeborn, or often the source is misunderstood astronomy or plain old schizophrenia.

All that in mind, you can test Freeborn's prophecy at home: Simply see if you're alive come Christmas morning.

If you make it, start getting ready for 2012, when the whole world is expected to end, according to cult leader Wayne Bent, who ought to have a better line on future events, being the son of God and all. But Bent, too, has got it wrong before, currently outliving his last end-of-the-world prognostication by more than a year.

• Top 10 Crazy Cults
• All About Cults, Religion and the Paranormal
• Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena

Robert Roy Britt is the Editorial Director of Imaginova. In this column, The Water Cooler, he takes a daily look at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond. Original Story: 'Parowan Prophet' Predicts U.S. Will Be Nuked by Christmas

End Times: Buddhist Eschatology

Pa Auk Sayadaw (The Workings of Kamma, 2008)

Buddhist view of the End of the World

Inconceivable is the beginning, bhikkhus [i.e., recluses, monastics, disciples], of the round of rebirth [i.e., Samsara]. A first point is not known of ignorance-hindered beings fettered by craving, rushing on and running about [in Samsara].

Then [t]he Buddha explains how, in the future, the world system will come to an end.

THERE WILL COME A TIME, BHIKKHUS

There will come a time, bhikkhus, when the great ocean dries up, evaporates, and is no more.

In the distant future the world will be destroyed in one of three ways: destroying by fire, by water, or by wind. Here, [t]he Buddha describes what happens when the world is destroyed by fire.

First of all, a hundred thousand years beforehand, certain sky-devas ["shining ones," light-beings, "angels," celestial messengers, extraterrestrials] will appear before people with dishevelled hair and pitiful faces, wiping their tears with their hands [reference: Path of Purification]. They will announce the end of the world and urge people to develop the four Divine Abidings (Brahma Viharas):

• loving-kindness (metta)
• compassion (karuna)
• sympathetic joy (mudita)
• equanimity (upekkha)

up to jhana. And they will advise people to look after their parents and to honor their elders.

Most people will take these words to heart and practice loving-kindness towards each other and in other ways accomplish wholesome karma. Those who are able will develop jhana. Those who are unable to develop jhana will, because of their past wholesome karma, be reborn in the deva world be reborn in the deva world: as devas, they will develop jhana. Dependent on ignorance and craving, the karmic potency (kamma satti) of their jhana causes all these beings to be reborn in the Brahma world [celestial worlds superior to deva realms].

Seven Suns megalith in Ireland

After a long period, a great cloud appears and heavy rain falls throughout the hundred thousand million world spheres (koti-sata-sahassa-cakka-vala). People sow crops, but when the crops have grown high enough for an ox to graze, the rain stops. With no more rain, all plants dry up and are no more, and there is soon famine. Human beings die, and also earth devas (bhumma-deva), for they live on flowers and fruits. Owing to their past wholesome karma, they are reborn in the deva world, where they as devas develop jhana. Dependent on ignorance and craving, the karmic potency of their jhana causes them to be reborn in the Brahma world.

According to a law of nature, also the beings in hell escape from hell and are reborn in the human world (VsM.xiii.405). They develop loving-kindness and are reborn in the deva world, where they as devas develop jhana. Dependent on ignorance and craving, the karmic potency of their jhana causes them to be reborn in the Brahma world.

But the beings who were reborn in hell [niraya, the downfall, a set of unfortunate destinations for the maturing of bad karma] as a result of persistent wrong views (niyata-miccha-ditthi, the most serious of the six weighty karmas) do not escape: dependent on ignorance and craving, the karmic potency of their persistent wrong views causes them to be reborn in a world-interstice hell (lok-antarika-niraya): [a perpetually dark "interstitial" plane, the description of which sounds like hyperspace] one of the hells situated in the space between world systems. Thus, even though the world system is coming to an end, the continued rushing on and running about of beings does not come to an end.

The Buddha explains: Not even then, [recluses], is the suffering of ignorance-hindered beings fettered by craving (who rush on and run about) brought to an end, I declare.

After a long period without rain, by the time all beings have been reborn elsewhere, a second sun [A.VII.vii.2, Satta-Suriya-Sutra ("The Seven Suns Discourse")]. And as one sun sets, the other rises, so there is no more telling night from day: the world is continuously scorched by the heat of the two suns. Rivers and streams dry up.

After yet another very long period, a third sun appears, and now also the great rivers dry up...

There will come a time, [recluses], when Sineru, king of mountains, is burned, destroyed, and is no more. Not even then, [recluses], is the suffering of ignorance-hindered beings fettered by craving (who rush on and run about [in Samsara or, literally, "the continued wandering on"]) brought to an end, I declare.

There will come a time, [recluses], when the great earth is burned, destroyed, and is no more. Not even then, [recluses], is the suffering of ignorance-hindered beings fettered by craving (who run on and run about) brought to an end, I declare.

Having explained how beings continue to rush on and run about in the round of rebirth [i.e., Samsara], [t]he Buddha then discusses why they do so.

• More Science/Spirituality:
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  Scientists' Belief in God Varies Starkly by Discipline
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Animal Realm Grows: Thousand Species

Naga: handout released 12/15/08 by the World Wildlife Fund Greater Mekong Programme shows a Gumprechts green pitviper found in Thailand (AFP/WWF).

More than 1,000 species discovered in Mekong: WWF

BANGKOK (AFP) – The Animal Realm continues to grow in number due to karma and rebirth and in diversity. Scientists have discovered more than 1,000 species in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region in the past decade, including a spider as big as a dinner plate, the World Wildlife Fund said Monday.

A rat thought to have become extinct 11 million years ago and a cyanide-laced, shocking pink millipede were among creatures found in what the group called a "biological treasure trove."

The species were all found in the rainforests and wetlands along the Mekong River, which flows through Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.

"It doesn't get any better than this," Stuart Chapman, director of WWF's Greater Mekong Programme, was quoted as saying in a statement by the group.

"We thought discoveries of this scale were confined to the history books."

The WWF report, "First Contact in the Greater Mekong," said that "between 1997 and 2007, at least 1,068 have been officially described by science as being newly discovered species."

These included the world's largest huntsman spider, with a leg span of 30 centimetres (11.8 inches), and the "startlingly" coloured "dragon millipede," which produces the deadly compound cyanide.

Not all species were found hiding in remote jungles -- the Laotian rock rat, which the study said was thought to be extinct about 11 million years ago, was first encountered by scientists in a local food market in 2005, it said.

One species of pitviper was first noted by scientists after it was found in the rafters of a restaurant at the headquarters of Thailand's Khao Yai national park in 2001.

"This region is like what I read about as a child in the stories of Charles Darwin," said Dr Thomas Ziegler, curator at the Cologne Zoo, who was involved in the research.

"It is a great feeling being in an unexplored area and to document its biodiversity for the first time both enigmatic and beautiful," he said.

The new species highlighted in the report include 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders, and a toad -- an average of two previously undiscovered species a week for the past 10 years.

The report warned, however, that many of the species could be at risk from development and called for a cross-border agreement between the countries in the Greater Mekong area to protect it.

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India's Holymen

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the subcontinent:

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Buddha Boy

Ram Bahadur Bamjan, right, believed to be a bodhisattva ("buddha-to-be") is surrounded by Buddhist monks in the town of Nijgadh, about 100 miles south of Katmandu, Nepal, 11/12/08. Bamjan, 18, has re-emerged from the jungle in southern Nepal, attracting thousands of devotees. After retreating into the jungle for more than a year, he re-emerged on 11/10/08 (AP Photo/Binod Joshi).

Vietnamese-American elected to Congress

Cain Burdeau (AP)

Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao, with his daughter Sophia Cao, 5, and his wife Kate Cao, talks to reporters after church in New Orleans, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008. Cao defeated Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., for the 2nd Congressional District in Louisiana, making him the first Vietnamese-American in Congress (AP Photo/Cheryl Gerber).

NEW ORLEANS – The first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress took advantage of dissatisfaction with a longtime incumbent dogged by corruption allegations and reflects the changing nature of New Orleans politics since Hurricane Katrina.

Republican immigration attorney Anh "Joseph" Cao defeated Democratic U.S. William Jefferson on Saturday in an election postponed for a month by Hurricane Gustav.

The victory for a 41-year-old child of Vietnam War refugees was greeted with amazement and drew parallels to last year's election of Gov. Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American Republican. More>>

• There might not be a story here were it not for the atrocities committed by American soldiers in the American War (aka "Vietnam War"). And one day WQ will surely cover the "First Iraqi-American Elected to Congress": Blackwater guards indicted in Iraq shooting surrender
• VIDEO: Blackwater guards plan Utah surrender (AP)

Buddha Boy is Back

Buddha Boy, Ram Bahadur Bamjan, looks on as devotees seek his blessing (AP).

• Slideshow: Nepal "Buddha Reincarnation"

KATMANDU, Nepal – A Nepalese teenager revered by many as a bodhisattva (a "being bent on buddhahood") has returned to the jungle to meditate after emerging for less than two weeks, officials said Saturday.

Ram Bahadur Bamjan, 18, reappeared on Nov. 10 after several months of meditation to bless thousands of his followers, speaking to them on at least two occasions.

He made his last appearance on Friday and then returned to the jungle to meditate, said Biswo Prakash Newpane, a government administrator in the area. It was not clear when he would return again.

His followers lined up near the jungle of Ratanpur, about 100 miles south of Katmandu, to be blessed by Bamjan. He tapped the believers on their forehead but did not speak to them individually.

The followers believe he has been meditating without food and water since he was first spotted in the jungles of southern Nepal in 2005. Believers say he spent months without moving, sitting with his eyes closed beneath a tree.

Buddhism, which has about 325 million followers, teaches that beings (unless fully enlightened) are reborn after death in many forms.

Buddhist scholars would be skeptical of any claim that Bamjan is a reincarnation of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, who was born in southwestern Nepal roughly 2,500 years ago.

Rakesh, a Buddhist scholar, told the Associated Press last week that being a "Buddha" means the end of suffering and the end of rebirth since it is the highest level that can be achieved. There can be no "reincarnation" of Buddha, but there can and are many rebirths for a bodhisattva such as Siddhartha Gautama and previous Buddhas.

• More on Nepal
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