Saturday, February 4, 2012

Titanic Ship

In the dark waters of the North Atlantic, the great passenger liner, R.M.S. Titanic, came to a violent and mysterious end. Each of her passengers unwitting players in a harrowing drama. The builder who would pronounce her dead. The brave men who refused to let her die. Thousands of people who struggled for their lives.

Now for the first time, a prominent Titanic historian will retell her tragic tale from the ship's actual decks. Haunting locations will take us back to pivotal moments during the epic disaster. Newly discovered artifacts are helping to piece together Titanic's untold stories.

It's a moment in history we'll still striving to understand, a part of our past impossible to forget. On the French research vessel Nadir, a countdown begins. The crew prepares for an unprecedented dive to one of the greatest shipwrecks in history, R.M.S. Titanic. On Nadir's fantail, a prototype submersible, Nautile, is run through a final series of systems checks. She is one of a few submersibles able to dive more than twelve thousand feet to reach Titantic. Historian, Charles Haas, is leading today's dive. His mission, to document key sites on the ship where critical events unfolded. To Haas, Titanic is a dramatic stage.

But it is the characters in the tragedy who draw him in. I think in order to get a full picture of what that night was like, you need to know the people who were involved in that situation. By knowing the characters in the drama, by knowing the people, you get a much better insight into the great drama of that night. As part of Haas' mission, he will also look for artifacts, personal objects which may provide clues to Titantic's story. When Nautile leaves these decks, she will drop two and a half miles into the Atlantic, into a hostile world. A place of freezing temperatures, bone crushing pressure and desolate darkness. If something goes wrong at the site, there is no chance of a rescue. In the control room, Nautile's position will be monitored by expedition leader, George Tulloch. I'm really proud of this expedition and this team.

Dim lights Embed

It's just a wonderful thing to be a part of. The Titanic is the piece of our history and it's just special in every direction. Tulloch is joined by Titanic historian and Haas' writing partner, Jack Eaton. There are many things that still can be learned from Titanic, from the disaster, from the recollection of the people and of the events. There are some major mysteries that are still unsolved. From the bridge, the crew watches as Nautile free falls to Titanic. A ship still giving up her secrets. For historians studying Titanic, much of what they know is based on testimony taken after the disaster. Hearings were held in both the United States and Britain which investigated the reason for her sinking.

Additional evidence turned up in rare diaries and letters. Now artifacts retrieved from the ocean floor let us study tangible pieces of lost history. In their research, historians have learned most about passengers who traveled lavishly in first and second class. People such as Emily Ryerson and Lawrence Beesley have given us a glimpse of what that horrific night was like. Remarkably, personal accounts of Titanic continue to surface. New witnesses are emerging. Their stories have rarely been heard. As the submersible Nautile descends to Titanic, the crew prepares for arrival at the site. Your approach to the Titanic is pretty much like hovering over a beach in a helicopter. You see the sand rolling under you and your navigating forward at maybe two or three miles an hour. All of a sudden, you see this immense object. And it is so, so immense that it completely fills the view port. Your first reaction is, it's almost an automatic, "Oh my God." Titanic is, it's still a very, very beautiful ship to see.

The lines are so beautiful under water. And there's an awe or a reverence or a silence from realizing what occurred on these decks, human stories of personal tragedy that literally happened within the space that you can now see. On April 4th, 1912 at midnight, Titanic docks at Southampton, England where her fist passengers will board. Under the direction of Haas, the crew of Nautile moves to the very spot where travelers first embarked. The trip aboard Titanic actually began at this spot. These are the B deck doorways, the so called shell doors. When you boarded the ship at Southampton in England, you would essentially have gone through these doors and the purser would greet you there. These doorways mark the site where many first touched Titanic, a simple portal that became an entrance to history.

In Southampton, boarding begins in the early morning. In command of the ship is Captain E. J. Smith. Smith's passenger list includes a who's who of the era. But the majority of the ship's passengers are third class. Titanic's owners hope to profit from immigrants such as Gerda and Edvard Lindell. The Lindells recently married are living in Skognas in southern Sweden. According to plans, Edvard will go to America first. Gerda will follow thereafter. Gerda, however, won't be separated from her new husband. At the last minute, she joins him. In a farewell gesture, Gerda drops roses along their route leaving a trail behind. In Southampton she writes a final postcard to her brother. Tomorrow we shall go aboard Titanic. We have been down to see the colossus. You should see what a beast it is.

Greetings from Gerda. On the 10th of April, 1912, the Lindells join more than two thousand others for Titanic's maiden voyage. Onboard, Edvard and Gerda meet fellow Swede, August Wennerstrom. Wennerstrom is traveling under an assumed name. He's a political dissident leaving Sweden to live in America. Only one of these three passengers will survive the journey. Today Titanic is a mass of twisted metal. But historian Charles Haas can see past the decay to the people who once walked these decks. As the crew of Nautile moves to a new location, twelve thousand feet above them at the surface, members of the expedition team help navigate the wreck Their destination is a third class area at Titanic's bow. Hello Jack Hello Jack Hello Charlie. How are you doing down there? Over. We're working hard down here.

We're looking now down at the third class area, the so called forward well deck And it was here that third class passengers were enjoying themselves and coming out for recreation. From this place, the sunsets must have been dramatic. Third class passengers including the Lindells spent early evenings strolling here, taking in the brisk sea air. Above the third class promenade, first and second class passengers enjoyed uncompromising luxury. Amenities included an exotic steam room. A state of the art gymnasium. And lavish dining salons. For one first class passenger, none of Titantic's palatial amenities are enticing. Mrs. Emily Ryerson's eldest son has been killed in a car crash in America. She's going to claim his body. She leaves her cabin rarely and eats in her room. The elegance of Titanic is meaningless to a mother in mourning. Haas is now one deck above Mrs. Ryerson's cabin. The team moves forward along the bow to one of Titanic's most famous locations.

Between the first and second funnel, there was a magnificent dome which sat atop an area known as the grand staircase. There's really no part of the Titanic that perhaps demonstrated the grandeur of the ship than this feature which was called the grand staircase in first class. It was surmounted by a rod iron and glass dome. It penetrated five or six decks down through the ship. As we can see now, however, the grand staircase is only a shattered leftover of its former self. For the first few days out at sea, the trip to America is uneventful. Then on Sunday, the temperature drops dramatically. Titanic's chief designer, Thomas Andrews, spends his Sunday reviewing the ship's plans and inspecting the vessel for any subtle imperfections. Titanic is the greatest achievement to date of his ascending career. Harold Bride is one of the ship's two radio operators. Bride's partner is Jack Phillips. Throughout the day on Sunday, they receive six warnings of ice.

Titanic's course is altered further south to avoid the danger. For passengers like the Lindells, the frigid air is enough to keep them indoors. Mrs. Emily Ryerson, however, makes a rare appearance outside her cabin to enjoy the quiet evening with a friend. Bruce Ismay, managing director for the company that owns Titanic, approaches Ryerson. Mrs. Ryerson. Ismay shares a wireless message. I have here a communication from the captain. It indicates... First he showed the telegram, then he said, We're in among the icebergs. At the time, the conversation had no importance to me. I was very much overburdened with other things that were on my mind. First Class Passenger, Mrs. Emily Ryerson. In fact, few on board are concerned about ice. Titanic, after all, is unsinkable. The colossal scale of Titanic was unrivaled in her day. Her tragic sinking is one of few events in history that still holds such a grip on our imagination. Titanic holds the place in the public interest for a number of reasons of course.

The first... is that it was probably the first major disaster to be covered by all of the media. There were some very early disasters in the 20th century but Titanic was the first one that made such a worldwide impact. People from the outset could identify with people on board the ship and this is something that has remained over the years. Titanic stood as a pinnacle of human ingenuity in a time of unbridled optimism. There was great optimism that the age was going to improve. They had such modern things as telephone and automobiles and even airplanes. And how far are these wonderful scientific devices going to take us? Above the wreck, Nautile moves to a haunting location in the story. The submersible is guided to the devastated remains of the forward funnel.

A one hundred and fifty foot funnel once occupied this cavernous hole. What we're passing over now is a huge ventilation system. Titanic had, of course, four funnels connected to the boiler rooms. So what we're looking at here is a giant tube in effect. And if we were to pursue it further, we would find ourselves way down in the Titantic's boiler rooms. The massive boilers located deep in the belly of the ship were Titanic's source of power. On the day of the disaster, twenty-four boilers are feeding Titanic's enormous engines. The ship's speed, twenty-one and a half knots. That evening, stoker Frederick Barrett begins his shift. In a few short hours, he will find himself in a pitched battle for survival. Second class passenger, Lawrence Beesley, fills out a claim form so that he can retrieve his valuables from the purser's safe. Before retiring, Beesley takes in some quiet entertainment. Eternal father come to save... After dinner, Mr. Carter invited all who wished to the saloon and with the assistance at the piano, he started passengers singing hymns. He was curious to see how many chose hymns dealing with dangers at sea. Second class passenger, Lawrence Beesley.

Two hours before impact, wireless operator Jack Phillips receives a warning from the ship Mesaba. Ice report, latitude 42 degrees north to 41 degrees, twenty-five minutes north. Saw much heavy pack ice and great number of large icebergs. Wireless operator, Jack Phillips. Phillips doesn't realize the ice field lies directly in Titanic's path. Rather than report the warning to an offiicer, he places it on a spike. This simple act dooms Titanic. The warning should have been delivered to Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller who was working on the bridge. The one vital report that came through but which never reached the bridge was received from the Mesaba. That delay proved fatal and was the main cause of the loss of that ship. Second Offiicer, Charles Lightoller. With the stage now set for disaster, the Nautile approaches an eerie scene. We are hovering over the fallen forward mast and you see the remains of the crow's nest. It was here that lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. On the night of April 14th, 1912. Fleet used the crow's nest bell but he essentially telephoned the bridge to report iceberg dead ahead.

The iceberg is spotted a quarter mile away. Not enough distance to turn a ship that stretches four city blocks long. Offiicers steered Titantic from this location. The ship's wheel used to be attached to this device called a telemotor. It is all that's left of the bridge. What we're seeing is the telemotor coming up. Here is really where Frederick Fleet's order was translated into action. Between Frederick Fleet's warning of the berg and the collision, it was just thirty-seven seconds of time. As Titanic begins to turn, it looks as if the ship will clear the iceberg. But an underwater ledge pierces Titanic's steel hull, buckling plates, causing thin separations in her side. There came what seemed to me, nothing more than an extra heave of the engines, nothing more than that, no sound of a crash or anything else. No sense of shock, no jar that fell like one heavy body meeting another. Second Class Passenger, Lawrence Beesley. I was just about ready for the land of nod when I felt a sudden vibrating jar run through the ship. Not that it was by any means a violent concussion but just a distinct and unpleasant break in the monotony of her motion.

Second Offiicer, Charles Lightoller. Deep below in third class, the impact is more obvious to the Lindells. And August Wennerstrom. Captain Smith dispatches Titanic designer Thomas Andrews to inspect the damage to the ship. What Andrews sees is devastating. He reports to Captain Smith that Titanic is filling fast. A quick calculation reveals the ship has an hour, maybe two. Andrews realizes the deadly implications immediately. On board are more than two thousand passengers and crew but only enough lifeboats for just half of them. Following the collision, the ship is quiet again. Most first and second class passengers are still sleeping. Little do they realize, a drama unfolds in the bow of the ship. Deep below, the front of Titanic is quickly flooding. The forward crew must abandon their positions. For the time being, Titanic's electricity is holding. Stoker Barrett and several others attempt to keep the water out of boiler room five. The men attach long hoses to the pumps.

If they keep this section from flooding, they believe they can save the ship. They do not know that Titanic's designer has already declared her doomed. From the boiler rooms, Nautile travels to a location where another battle was fought. Above this fatal wound in the ship lies Titanic's mail room. Among the greatest heroes of Titantic's story, I think, are the postal workers. There were more than thirty- five hundred bags of mail onboard... Thirty-five hundred. and as the water began flooding this area, the men's only thought was to try to rescue the mail that they had been placed in charge of. As Titanic's mail room floods, the postal workers drag the mail to higher ground. As they work, the rising water rapidly pursues them, lapping at their heels at each level. Eventually, they are overtaken. This great hole marks the spot where the five postal workers died. They were Titanic's first victims. The next site is perhaps the most wrenching. From the control room, the crew guides Nautile to one of the evacuation areas.

Titanic's lifeboats were stored on her uppermost decks. There were only sixteen, capacity for about one thousand. This ghostly crane lowered boats into the dark sea. Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller worked at this very spot. As Lightoller and his men crank out the boats. Passengers stand by and watch. Among them, there is utter disbelief. Nothing seems wrong. Why are they being asked to evacuate? Many passengers initially won't leave and the first boats are launched virtually empty. Near this location, the radio operators frantically signal for assistance. In a desperate attempt to summon help, they send a newly adopted distress code SOS. Titanic is one of the first ships in history to send the call. What we are looking at now is the interior of the ship's wireless room. Here the radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were given the information that the Titanic was doomed. They began immediately sending out distress signals.

And so it was from this very room that these two men worked very hard to save lives. Recognizing the fatal damage to Titanic, designer Thomas Andrews calmly works to prepare the passengers for the lifeboats. He knows, regardless of his effort, there will be a tragic loss of life. Third class passengers August Wennerstrom and the Lindells are left on their own. As they head for the lifeboats, the stern begins to rise out of the water. We saw the sea climbing up the deck more quickly than before. I could see that everyone was clamoring aft and trying to keep from sliding down the slanting deck which was growing steeper. Third Class Passenger, August Wennerstrom. Deep in the belly of the ship, Frederick Barrett of the crew feared the red hot boilers will explode when they come in contact with the icy sea water so they extinguish the boilers.

As each fire is put out, the hold fills with steam. Blinded by black dust and steam, one of Barrett's companions falls into an open manhole. His leg is shattered and Barrett drags him to a pump room. Nearly two hours after impact, a weakened wall caves in and the sinking of Titanic accelerates. Barrett escapes but his companion will perish. When Barrett arrives on deck, his timing is perfect. He is quickly assigned to a lifeboat as an oarsman and is lowered away. Lawrence Beesley climbs aboard Barrett's boat when no more women or children are nearby. On the opposite side of the ship, one man wrestles with his conscience. His name is Masabumi Hosono. I tried to prepare myself for the last moment making up my mind not to leave anything disgraceful as a Japanese but I still found myself looking for any possible chance for survival. There were many men who attempted to squeeze in but sailors refused them at gunpoint. I, myself, was deep in desolate thought.

Even if I became the target of a pistol shot, it would be the same and thus I made a jump for the lifeboat. From the dark sea, Hosono looks back at embattled Titanic. Her lights burning brightly. Her stern rising perversely from the water. I saw a great number of passengers still frantically moving about on the deck giving terrible shouts and cries for help. The scene was just horrible and eerie. Our lifeboat too was filled with sobbing and weeping women who had been worried about the safety of their husbands and fathers. It was all unbearably sad and hopeless. On board Titanic, Mrs. Ryerson refuses to leave her husband despite his best efforts to convince her otherwise. My husband said, "When they say women and children first, you must go." And I said, "Why do I have to go on that boat?" And he said, "You must obey the captain's orders and I'll get in somehow. "First Class Passenger, Mrs. Emily Ryerson. Hundreds of families are struggling with the same question.

Should they separate or stick together? With few lifeboats left, people take the threat of sinking seriously. Now the challenge for the crew is to keep people from mobbing the remaining boats. At 1:45 a.m., Emily Ryerson boards one of the last boats to be launched with her two daughters and one son. Her husband stays behind. Mr. Andrews, Mr. Andrews. Titantic's designer, Thomas Andrews, is last seen looking lost in a trance in the first class smoking room. Andrews. Mr. Andrews. Mr. Andrews? As Titantic's stern tilts higher, the Lindells and August Wennerstrom slide into the water. Relieved of his duty, Second Offiicer Lightoller also takes his chances in the sea. Immediately he is sucked into a ventilation shaft. Although I struggled and kicked for all I was worth, it was impossible to get away. Every instant expecting myself shot down into the bowels of the ship. I was still struggling and fighting when suddenly a terrific blast of hot air came up the shaft and blew me right away up to the surface.

From the surface, Lightoller witnesses the end of R.M.S. Titanic. The bow of the ship was now rapidly going down and the stern was rising higher and higher out of the water piling the people into helpless heaps around the steep decks and by the score into the icy water. Second Offiicer, Charles Lightoller. As she swung out, her lights, which had shown without a flicker all night, went out suddenly. Came on again for a single flash and then went out all together. Second Class Passenger, Lawrence Beesley. The stern stood for several minutes black against the stars and then the boat plunged up. Then began the cries for help which seemed to go on forever. First Class Passenger, Mrs. Emily Ryerson. As Titanic plummets to the ocean floor, the most beautiful liner the world every saw shatters into pieces. On the surface, the human drama continues. Charles Lightoller manages to climb atop an overturned lifeboat. Some thirteen men struggle here to keep their balance, to prevent slipping into the icy water. Wireless operators, Bride and Phillips are among these men. Phillips will die of exposure before morning.

The Lindells manage to find a lifeboat but the boat overturns sending them helplessly back into the sea. For how long a time I was away from the boat, I don't know. When I came back to the boat, it was filled with water. My friend, Edvard Lindell had also got aboard. I saw Mrs. Lindell in the water and clasped her hand. I didn't have the strength to pull her aboard. Mr. Lindell looked straight ahead. Never made a move or said a word. I realized that he'd frozen to death. After a half hour, I lost my grip and saw Mrs. Lindell disappear into the sea. Third Class Passenger, August Wennerstrom. More than one thousand, five hundred men, women and children perished this night. Relics of their lives are strewn along the ocean floor. Artifacts like these provide the last clues to their stories. Among broken plates and debris, Haas makes a discovery. He finds and retrieves a device called a telegraph that was used to signal the engines.

Your emotional attachment to a particular object eventually evolves into a great deal of anxiousness about its future. And when you see the artifacts being brought up and in particular when you see them being conserved that anxiousness is replaced by a great, great deal of happiness that you've preserved them for the future. After a day of exploration, Nautile returns to the surface with precious cargo. On the fantail of Nadir, the newly discovered artifact is shared with the crew. You know, history's progressed another notch there Charles. I'm really quite overwhelmed by that. In a warehouse in Hamburg, Germany, people line up to visit an extraordinary exhibit of Titanic artifacts. Historians Charles Haas and Jack Eaton and expedition leader, George Tulloch take in the emotional display.

They have come to see fragments of history, some of which they have helped to rescue from certain oblivion. Certain objects here played a critical role during Titanic's final hours. The giant wrenches used by the men in the boiler room remind us of those who struggled to keep Titanic afloat. Men like Frederick Barrett. Barrett survived the disaster and continued to work most of his life out at sea. One of Titanic's brass bells, a symbol of her elite offiicers, including Second Offiicer Charles Lightoller. Lightoller was the only senior offiicer to survive Titanic. He retired unceremoniously. During World War II, he used his yacht in daring missions to aid the British war effort. This claim check, number two, oh, eight, belonged to Lawrence Beesley and it was retrieved from the ocean bottom.

Beesley lived to be eighty-nine and write one of the most significant accounts of the Titanic tragedy. Women's jewelry, reminds us that many of Titanic's survivors were widowed that night. When Mrs. Ryerson arrived in New York, she would bury her son who was killed in a car crash and mourn her lost husband. Mrs. Ryerson died at the age of seventy-six. Masabumi Hosono lived reclusively and rarely spoke of Titanic. His rare written account has now become a part of history. Hosono lived to be sixty-nine and died in Japan. August Wennerstrom survived Titanic. He spent most of his life in America and died in Culver, Indiana.

This is the wedding band of Gerda Lindell. It was retrieved from the lifeboat where both she and her husband lost their lives. These objects are the last remnants of the Titanic disaster. They forge a link across a century to a vanished time. This clarinet and these letters of love found in a man's suitcase give us an intimate glimpse into a life we would have known nothing about, a life like many others forever changed by Titanic. Of the two thousand, two hundred and twenty - eight individuals aboard Titanic, we only know the experiences of perhaps half. Some of their stories have been told and fully developed. But even to this day, most of Titanic's stories still remain untold.

Original: http://www.amworld.info/titanic-stories/titanic-ship

Friday, February 3, 2012

HTC acknowledges long-running WiFi security flaw, says it deliberately kept it quiet

As far back as September, security researchers discovered a "critical" bug in many HTC Android handsets that exposed users' WiFi credentials to any hacker who cared to look. The flaw affected recent devices like the Thunderbolt and EVO 4G all the way back to the Desire HD. The researchers promptly notified HTC, but the manufacturer waited a full five months before acknowledging the flaw publicly a few days ago. Sounds shady, perhaps, but HTC sent us a statement clarifying that this is standard policy to protect customers. It says it waited to develop a fix before it alerted the big bad world to the vulnerability. Most newer devices have already received their fix OTA, but owners of some older phones -- we'll update this post when we know exactly which ones -- will need to check the HTC Support site for a manual update next week. Meanwhile, in manufacturer's defense, the guys at the Open1X group who discovered the bug say that HTC was "very responsive and good to work with." Here's HTC's statement to us:

"HTC takes customer data security very seriously. If there is a known breach of sensitive customer data, our priority is customer notification along with corrective actions. It is our policy, and industry standard procedure, to protect customers, which sometimes necessitates not increasing data security risks by disclosing minor breach issues where no malicious applications are detected. In those cases, premature disclosure of vulnerabilities could spur creation of malicious apps to take advantage of any vulnerability before it is fixed. For this specific WiFi bug issue, we worked closely with Google and the security researchers from the date of notification and throughout this process to ensure that the majority of affected HTC phones had already received the fix prior to the vulnerability being made public."

HTC acknowledges long-running WiFi security flaw, says it deliberately kept it quiet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

GANDHARA—LAND OF THE BUDDHA?

Loriyan-Tangai. Relief of Buddha surrounded by worshippers. Lahore Museum. Notice Buddha's moustache.

Gandhara seems to have taken to Buddhism with surprising speed and vigor, based on the archaeological remains and statuary found there. The earliest datable Buddhist sites, Butkara I in the Swat Valley and the Dharmarajika complex in Taxila, near Sirkap, are dated to the early second century BCE. Even conceding that Asoka introduced Buddhism to Gandhara through his missionaries, as per legend, the country would have had to have been converted and its art and culture adapted in response to this new religion within less than two centuries. This would have required a massive evangelical effort, which seems rather improbable in the period before the Common Era, for a religion like Buddhism, where salvation is believed to be achieved through personal striving.

The video above, from the BBC series "In the footsteps of Alexander the Great," shows scenes from Gandhara, such as the Swat Valley.

From Buddhist Art of Gandhra by Sir John Marshall.

Gandhara was the ancient name of the tract of country on the west bank of the Indus river which comprises the Peshawar Valley and the modern Swat, Buner and Bajaur. It was a country with rich, well-watered valleys, clear-cut hills and a pleasant climate: a country where a Greek might well dream of being back in his homeland. Situated on the border between India and western Asia, Gandhara belonged as much and as little to the one as to the other. In the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, it formed part of the Achaemenid empire of Persia. In the fourth it was occupied for a brief period by the armies of Alexander the Great. Thereafter it was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya, but after a century of Indian rule the West again asserted itself, and for another century (roughly, the second century BCE) Greek dynasts took the place of India. Then came, early in the first century BCE, the victorious Sakas or Scythians, to be followed, after yet another century, by the Parthians and Kushans. And even then the tale of foreign conquest was not ended. For in the third century CE Gandhara again reverted to Persia, now under Sasanid sovereigns, and was again re-conquered by the Kidara Kushans in the fourth. Finally, the deathblow to its prosperity was given by the Ephthalites or White Huns, who swept over the country about 465 CE, carrying fire and sword wherever they went and destroying the Buddhist monasteries.
Gandhara (red circle).

The people of Gandhara were thoroughly cosmopolitan in their culture and their outlook. Of their physical appearance we get some idea from the old sculptures. Some of the men, with strikingly tall and dignified figures, closely resembled many present-day Pathans, and wore the same distinctive kind of baggy trousers and sleeved coat. Others were characteristically Greek; others just as characteristically Indian. And, no doubt, if we knew more about them, we should recognize other racial elements portrayed by the sculptors. The common speech of the people was an Indian Prakrit [Buddha was said to have spoken Prakrit], but the script they used for the writing of this vernacular was not, as might have been expected, the current Brahmi of Northern India but a script known as Kharoshthi—a modified form of the Aramaic of Western Asia, which had been adopted for official use throughout the Persian Empire during Achaemenid times. [Jesus was supposed to have spoken Aramaic. Link between Buddhism and Christianity?] Other languages and other script were also employed, on occasion, in Gandhara. The coins, for example, normally had Greek legends on their obverse, Kharoshthi on their reverse; but in rare cases the legends were in Brahmi. Brahmi, too, was the usual script employed in the sacred manuscripts of the Buddhists. Nevertheless it is true to say that Gandhara took its everyday speech from India and its writing from the West.

The earliest images of Buddha, such as the one above from Gandhara, clearly show him as an Indo-Aryan.

This intimate fusion of widely divergent elements was equally apparent in the religious life of the people. As each successive conqueror added his quota to the local gallery of deities and creeds, the number and variety went on growing. In the second century CE the coins of the Kushan kings Kanishka and Huvishka, whose capital was at Peshawar, exhibit a truly amazing gallery of gods and goddesses probably unparalleled elsewhere in the field of numismatics. Most numerous are the Iranian types, including among others the sun (Mioro), the moon (Mao), the wind (Oado), fire (Athsho), war (Orlagno), victory (Oanindo). The names are given in corrupt Greek. Not all these multifarious deities were all worshiped at the heart of the Kushan empire in Gandhara; for they may well have been designed as a means of popularizing the new gold currency in distant parts of the Kushan empire and even beyond its borders, where it was hoped the currency might compete with the Roman aureus. Indeed, the great predominance of Western Asiatic types on these coins suggests that the currency was intended for use in the West rather than in the East. But, however this may be, this gold coinage leaves us in no doubt that the attitude of the Kushans towards religion was as thoroughly cosmopolitan as it was towards other matters, as cosmopolitan indeed as that of the Romans or Alexandrians, and perhaps no less practical. Looking at this coinage one would never guess that in the time of Kanishka and Huvishka Gandhara and the greater part of the Kushan empire were overwhelmingly Buddhist.

The beginnings of Buddhism in Gandhara go back no further than the middle of the third century BCE when the Maurya emperor Asoka sent one of his many missions to spread the gospel of his newly adopted faith among his subjects on the Northwest Frontier. [I've argued elsewhere that there is insufficient evidence to maintain that he converted to Buddhism.] Evidence of this mission’s activities may still be seen in the fourteen Edicts of the emperor engraved on the rocks at Shabaz-Garhi in the Peshawar Valley, which set forth the Buddhist principles of religion and ethic, and such simple rules of conduct as Asoka deemed most conducive to the welfare of his people.

To Asoka was also due the outstanding importance of the stupa or funeral mound as an emblem and cultural object of worship among the Buddhists. For one of the many acts by which he sought to popularize the Sakya faith was the gift to each of the principal cities in his dominions of a portion of the body relics of the Buddha. These he obtained by opening the seven of the eight stupas in which the relics had originally been enshrined and dividing up their contents. Along with the relics he also presented each city with a stupa worthy of housing them. [On the other hand this could be stuff of myth and legend.] In making these gifts the emperor may well have recognized the value of providing the worshippers with some visible and tangible object on which to focus their thoughts and prayers. But, whatever his purpose, the effect of these relic-stupas was profound and lasting. Not only did the presence of the relics make them cult objects of worship, but in after days the stupa itself, whether it contained a relic or not, was worshiped for its own sake; so that the mere erection of a stupa large or small and in whatever material, became an act of merit, bringing its author a step nearer salvation. [Not true; in Buddhism, doing good actions can never lead to salvation. “Whoever shall do nothing but good works will receive nothing but excellent future rewards.” The aim of the disciple is not to accumulate merit, but to win insight.] This matter of the stupa cult deserves our particular attention because it was on the adornment of the stupa that the early Buddhists lavished the wealth of their sculpture, and stupas, sometimes richly decorated, figure prominently among the reliefs of Gandhara.

By the side of some of his relic-stupas Asoka also erected tall pillars of stone, crowned by lions or other symbolical animals and usually inscribed with one or more of his Edicts. These, too, came to be looked on as characteristic emblems of the Buddhist Church, and are frequently to be seen portrayed in the sculptured panels of the Early Indian and Gandhara Schools. The finest of the pillars were executed by Greek or Perso-Greek sculptors; others by local craftsmen, with or without foreign supervision.

How Buddhism fared under the Greek princes of the Northwest during the second century BCE is largely a matter of inference and surmise. For among the myriads of Buddhist monuments and antiquities that have survived until the present day there is not one that can be referred with certainty to Greek authorship in the second century before our era. Indeed, the only positive bit of information about this Greek period that we possess is the story told in the Milindapanha about King Menander (reigned circa 140--110 BCE) and his conversion to Buddhism by Nagasena. Though the story may be largely apocryphal, there is no reason for doubting its substantial truth. The Greeks were very open-minded about religious matters; and the teaching of the Sakyamuni, by its essentially ethical character, by its logical reasoning, and by the stress it laid on free will and the observance of the golden mean, was bound to make a strong appeal to the Greek intellect.
[This supports my thesis that Buddhism was an invention of the philhellenic Sakas or Scythians and not the invention of a Vedic mind.] Moreover, from a political point of view Menander must have had the strongest reasons for identifying himself with the Buddhist Church in its struggle against their common enemy, the Sunga king Pushyamitra, and the violent Brahmanical reaction championed by him, which had led to the wholesale destruction of Buddhist monasteries in the Eastern Panjab.

Time Line.

518—515 BCE. Conquest of the Indus valley by Darius I. By shunting Buddha’s date forward by about a century, India’s first certain (more or less) date becomes the conquest of the Indus valley by Darius I, he whose far-flung battles included defeat at Marathon by the Athenians in 490 CE. Before this, Darius had evidently enjoyed greater success on his eastern frontier; a Persepolis inscription, dated to circa 518, lists amongst his numerous domains that of ‘Hi(n)du.’ An earlier inscription also refers to ‘Gadara,’ which looks like Gandhara, a mahajanapada or ‘state’ mentioned in both Sanskrit and Buddhist sources and located in an arc reaching from the western Panjab through the northwest frontier to Kabul and perhaps into southern Afghanistan (where ‘Kandahar’ is the same word). According to Xenophon and Herodotus, Gandhara had been conquered by Cyrus, one of Darius’ predecessors.

448/480 BCE. Birth of the Buddha (high and low range).

368/405 BCE. Death of the Buddha (high and low range).

331—327 BCE. Alexander the Great (ruled 336-323). Alexander's Indian campaign follows not long after Buddha's death. He is in Gandhara, conquers Taxila, and arrives at the Indus River.

The Indian king Porus on his war elephant, attacked by Alexander on horseback, a coin struck by Alexander to celebrate his victory in 326 BCE.

322 BCE. The rise of Chandragupta Maurya.

313—312 BCE. Chandragupta Maurya king of Magadha / Megasthenes at the court of Pataliputra, identified as modern Patna. But according to Dr. Ranajit Pal, this is incorrect. See A New Non-Jonesian History of the World.

264 BCE. Accession of Asoka. (Asoka’s stupas are difficult to identify in the archaeological record, but were likely built at important Buddhist centers in Gandhara and the Ganges Basin.)

200 BCE. The first Buddhist sites are founded in Gandhara, but no religious imagery is known from this period, (Butkara I, Swat valley and Dharmarajika, Taxila). The few Asokan rock-cut edicts that remain in Afghanistan and Pakistan do not directly address the introduction of Buddhism into Gandhara; many scholars have nonetheless considered them evidence of the beginning of Buddhism in the region. [If Asoka had introduced Buddhism to Gandhara, wouldn't he have boasted about it on his rock-cut edicts?] Not until the early second century BCE, however, was the earliest datable Buddhist site, Butkara I in the Swat Valley, founded in Greater Gandhara. The only other Buddhist site in Gandhara that can be attributed to the second century BCE is the Dharmarajika complex in Taxila, near Sirkap.

Dhamarajika, Taxila.

circa 168 BCE. King Menander (reigned circa 140--110 BCE) withdraws from the Magadha to the Panjab (until circa 145). According to Dr. Pal, Magadha is not modern Bihar; if it was it would mean that the Indo-Greeks controlled territory all the way to east India.

Menander, Bactrian Greek philospher-king of northwest India.

circa 150 BCE. The stupas of Bharhut and Sanchi / The Buddhist philosopher Nagasena / The Milindapanha.

Sanchi, Great Stupa, seen from the east, before 'restoration'.

circa 130 BCE. Invasion of Bactria by the Yuezhi tribe.

circa 90-80 BCE. Invasion of the Sakas (Indo-Scythes) / Collapse of the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms.

circa 70 BCE. The vedika of Bodh Gaya. Shrine and monastery of Bhaja.

circa 30 CE The toranas of Sanchi.

One of the four carved gateways (toranas) of the railings with which the Great Stupa at Sanchi was embellished.

circa 78 CE. The Saka era. The Kushanas extend their power in India.

1st century CE. First appearance of sculpture embellishing Buddhist sites (Gandhara).

circa 125 CE. Completion of the Ramayana and compilation of the Mahabharata. / The Begram site in Kapisa / Drafting of the Bhagavad Gita / The dramatist Asvaghosa.

circa 144—185 CE. Accession and death of king Kanishka.


Coin of Kanishka, Pakistan, ancient region of Gandhara.

A coin of Kanishka depicts, on the obverse, the king standing and facing left; he has a full beard and wears a pointed hat and heavy felt coat, a mode of dressing similar to that of Parthian kings, which marks him as coming from a land outside South Asia. Kanishka reaches out with his right hand to make a sacrifice at a low altar; in his left hand he carries a spear. Flames issue from his right shoulder, indicating his superior natural powers. The reverse of the coin shows a four-armed Shiva, a Hindu god, who is wearing a dhoti (loincloth) and holding a vajra (a weapon), and ankusa (elephant goad), a trident, and an antelope by the horns. No aspect of this coin's iconography makes reference to the Buddhist faith, which is especially significant since later Buddhist text sources refer to Kanishka as a great Buddhist king, equal only to Asoka. Kanishka did mint coins with images of Buddha on the reverse, but he also had coins produced showing a range of other South Asian (Hindu) and Near Eastern deities, associating his portrait with various gods venerated by the people of his realm and by his Near Eastern trading partners.

1st—3rd century CE. Kushan dynasty controls much of Greater Gandhara and north India, reaching the zenith of its power under kings Kanishka (ruled CE 129-155) and Huvishka (ruled 155-193).

2nd century CE. Period when many Buddhist sites are founded and when most Gandharan Buddhist native sculpture is produced.

3rd century CE. Devotional icons of the Buddha and bodhisattvas begin to be sculpted. Schist remains an important medium, but clay, stucco, and terracotta start to be widely used.

Before 200 (?) The Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna.

Before 300 (?) The sites of Nagarjunakonda and Goli.

circa 375—circa 414. The most splendid of the Ajanta caves / The philosophers Asanga and Vasubandhu / The poet and dramatist Kalidasa.

3rd—5th century CE. Period of greatest prosperity in Gandhara; new Buddhist sacred sites are founded and older ones are greatly expanded. Most Gandharan Buddhist iconic sculpture is produced during this period.

Massive rock-hewn Buddhist caitya at Mes Aynak, Ancient Gandhara.

4th—5th century CE. Devotional icons become monumental, and the iconography of Buddha images becomes more complex.

5th—6th century CE. Various Hun people take control of Gandhara. There is a gradual decline in donor patronage to Gandharan Buddhist sacred areas; as they contract, Buddhist communities re-use older sculpture.

Early Chinese pilgrims, for example, considered the relics at sites in Afghanistan and Gandhara, rather than the sacred sites of north India, the culmination of their travels through Central Asia.