Essays on ancient civilization

He said that the world crisis was from humanity losing the ethical idea of civilization, "the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress". The abstract noun "civilization", meaning "civilized condition", came in the s, again from French. The first known use in French is inby Victor Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeauand the first use in English is attributed to Adam Fergusonwho in his Essay on the History of Civil Society wrote, "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation".

At one time he was worshipped in various parts of the world with different names and methods.

• The Prototype Siva of the Indus Valley Civilization
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He was the lord of the underworld as well as heavens. He was the lord of both men and animals. He was associated with death, fertility cults, worship of bulls and serpents, magical cures, funeral rites, warrior cults, battle field Essays on ancient civilization and human sacrifices.

There is even an argument that he is the same God of wrath mentioned in the Bible and worshipped by the Muslims in the Kaaba. SHe is revered equally by the ascetics as the highest and Supreme Being Mahesvara and by the masses as the giver of boons, children and virility.

His more benign forms emerged with the changes in our consciousness and the progress of our civilization. The Vedic people feared and revered Siva, which is well evident in the early descriptions of him found in the Vedas. They addressed him as Rudra, the howler and weeper and the fierce god of storms and winds.

They distrusted and hated those who worshipped him and at the same time sought his protection through invocations against death and disease and his own wrath.

Historically the worship of Siva is rooted in prehistoric religious beliefs and precedes the advent of Vedic religion in northwestern India. By the time the Vedic religion gained a foothold in the Indian subcontinent, Lord Siva was already a popular god, worshipped by many people outside the Brahmanical fold.

When we read the ancient Hindu scriptures including the Vedas and the Puranas it becomes clear that Siva was not a Vedic deity. He was worshipped in India even before the Vedic civilization, most likely in the mountainous regions of ancient India where there was snowfall and by the communities who lived along the river banks and snake infested plains.

Shiva was feared because he caused death by taking heat away from living beings and made them cold. At the same time, he was revered because Essays on ancient civilization saved people from the destructive forces of Nature and brought people back to life by removing poison from their bodies arising from snake bites and curing their diseases with his miraculous chest of medicines.

The Vedic people believed in rebirth through male progeny and wealth through cattle. Therefore, they prayed to him for the protection of their children and cattle against disease and death.

While we cannot entirely rely upon them for historical facts, we can deduce from the stories and legends contained in them that there was a power struggle of sorts between the worshippers of Shiva and those of the Vedic deities before a compromise emerged and Shiva became an integral part of the Vedic pantheon.

Hidden in the stories pertaining to the conflict between Daksha Prajapati and Shiva and the antics of Indra and his attendant deities is the evidence alluding to this conflict and the subsequent compromise. The seals show a male figure with three faces and a pair of horns over his head, seated on a pedestal in a yogic posture with animals on each side.

The presence of animals, the horns over the head, the three faces and the yogic posture do remind one of Siva who is considered as Pasupathi or lord of the animals and whose vehicle is bull.

The ancient Sumerians, who lived in the southern Mesopotamia during the same period as the Indus people, worshipped a deity who was also called lord of the animals and they had a goddess who was called the lady of the mountains.

She reminds us of Parvathi, the consort of Siva, popularly known as the daughter of the mountains. Excavations at Indus sites also revealed polished stone images in the form of male ling and female yoni sexual organs, which indicate that the Indus people practiced some fertility cults in which they worshipped Father God and Mother Goddess.

That the Indus people might have practiced some primitive form of Saivism is also evident from the bull or bull like images found in the Indus seals.

The Sivan, Chempu and Sembu or the Dravidian Traditions According to historians several features of Saivism, some popular names of Siva including the name Siva itself and worship of Siva came to us from non-Vedic traditions, especially ancient Dravidian traditions.

They settled first in northwestern India and then gradually moved inland towards the east and the south. They spoke agglutinative languages, some of which survived in southern India, parts of central Asia 2 and Europe 3.

According to some scholars, the Dravidians were originally Lemurians who came from a submerged continent known as Lemuria 4 or Atlantis during prehistoric times and settled down in some parts of the world such as Greece 5Mediterranean, India, parts of Europe and probably the Americas 6.

The ancient Sumerians 7 and Indus people were probably Dravidians. Based on some anthropological similarities, some historians believe them to be Semitic in origin while according to some the Dravidian came from nowhere but were indigenous inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent.

The Dravidians worshipped Siva, whose name seems to have been derived from the Tamil root word shivan meaning the red one. So is the word Shambhu, an epithet of Siva, from chembu or shembu meaning copper or the red metal.

The Dravidians had a written language which they used to record their compositions on Palmyra leaves and create books by binding them together.

They housed their deities in temples called ko-ils and invoked them by the traditional Indian method of worship known as pooja or puja, which is the most popular form of worship of gods in Hinduism today, in which water, incense, flowers etc.

Apart from Siva, they also worshipped Murugan who is equated with Kumara or Skanda, the elder son of Siva. They worshipped snakes, eagles, several village deities grama devatas and the monkey god who later became famous as Hanuman.

Sibu, the Tribal God Siva in ancient India was also known as Sibu, the tribal god of Sibis, an ancient Indian tribe, who lived in the area comprising of present day Punjab. Some places in Punjab allude to their ancient connection with Siva such as Sivapura. The Sibis were an ancient warrior tribe.

They wore animal skin, carried clubs and wandered from place to place. Probably the Sibis constituted one of the earliest band of aggressive and virulent ascetics, like the modern day Nirankaris of Sikhism, a tradition that was later on revived by Lakulisa and continued by some sects of Saivism, such as the Kapalikas and in recent times by the Virasaivas.

Apart from Sibis, we have indications that many tribes of the Vedic period also worshipped Siva, or aspects of Siva, some of which were subsequently identified with the Rudras of the Vedas and integrated into Saiva Mythology.SPRING undergraduate courses-updated (click lausannecongress2018.com) SPRING graduate courses-updated (click lausannecongress2018.com) The Classics program offers an undergraduate major and minor in both the B.A.

The World before BCE

and B.S. degrees. Students pursuing a major or minor in Classics study Latin and/or Ancient Greek, Ancient History, Mythology and Folklore, and Ancient Philosophy. The ancient Egyptian civilization is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Over a period of three thousand years many kingdoms and dynasties came into power and many died away into oblivion.

One thing that kept Egyptian’s works and memories alive were the scriptures they wrote. Siva (Shiva, Sivam) is one of the most ancient gods of Hinduism, known by many names, forms and aspects, some of which have been lost to us.

At one time he was worshipped in various parts of the world with different names and methods. He was the lord of the underworld as well as heavens. He was the. The World before BCE. home | BCE to CE | 6thth centuries | th centuries | th centuries. Billions of Years – from the earth's beginning to human species.

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The Sivan, Chempu and Sembu or the Dravidian Traditions

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Biology, the Brain and . There is a dearth of ancient Indus-based fiction in English; there are even fewer works in Hindi or Urdu. Yakoob Yawar's Dilmun is among the very few exceptions (indeed, it was the second novel ever to be set in the ancient Indus civilization, 50 years after the Hindi Murdon ka Teela by Rangeya Raghava).