A Wisdom Archive on 4th century BC

4th millennium BC - Environmental changes. Based on studies by glaciologist Lonnie Thompson (professor at Ohio State University and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center) [1] a number of indicators shows there were a global change in climate 5,200 years ago: The climate was altered suddenly with severe impacts. Plants buried in the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes demonstrate the climate had shifted suddenly and severely to capture the plants and preserve them until now. ...

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Dalmatia is a region with a long history. Its name is probably derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae which lived in the area of the eastern Adriatic coast in the 1st millenium BC. It was part of the Illyrian kingdom between the 4th century BC until the Illyrian Wars in the 220s BC when it was conquered by the Roman Republic. The Dalmatians rebelled once again in 180 BC, but were again subdued in 168 BC. Dalmatia then became part of the Roman province of Illyricum. In 9 AD, the Dalmatians raised the last in a s ...

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Stoics [from stoa corridor in Athens in which Zeno held his school and taught]
 
Stoicism is most familiar as a great ethical system; its aim was to make wisdom practical. It set virtue above outer, physical, or social happiness as an ideal to be aimed at, and both its watchword and its consequent objective was duty. Though in the form familiar to us it arose in Greece, its qualities were better adapted to Hellenistic then to purely Greek appreciations, and especially to the Romans of the Empire with their graver temperament and individual subjection to the imperium. So far as Greece is concerned, its practical character can be traced to the influence of Socrates and of the Cynics; but it received Asiatic influence from its founder (Zeno, 4th century BC), of Asiatic origin.
 
It recognized a supreme and all-harmonious divinity of hierarchical character and various subordinate deities, and the unity of man with nature and of nature with this divinity. This divinity, however, was not personal God, but the cosmic spiritual originant, recognized as but one of innumerable others in the boundless fields of illimitable space. Stoicism recognized in man the existence of wisdom and will, whereby he might transcend the distractions of lower forces and realize the ideal of harmony with nature and resulting equanimity.
 
This great system is worthy of being enumerated among the outpourings of the ancient wisdom and may be said to have been the religion of the Roman world under the early empire. Even Christian sectarianism admits that paganism reached one of its great heights of ethical idealism under the Stoics; and it has reverberated in wave after wave through succeeding ages down to the transcendentalism and "new thought" of our times.

 
(See also: Stoics, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

Orissa
Orissa is an eastern state belonging to the Indian sub-continent. The city of Bhubaneswar (temple city of India) is the state capital.
 
During the medieval times, the state corresponding roughly with now-a-days Orissa passed under the various names such as: Utkala, Kalinga, and Odra (Udra) Desa. The state boundaries varied from time to time and were sometimes much larger. These land names are associated with peoples. The Okkala or Utkala, the Kalinga, and the Odra or Oddaka were mentioned in literature as tribes. Ancient Greeks knew the latter two as Kalingai and Oretes. Eventually the names got identified with the territories. The land was inhabited by semi-Hinduized tribes (shabaras) in the hinterland, a group of farming Brahmins (halua brahmuna) who practised invincible Tantra method near Jajpur area (the place of Goddess Biraja), and people of other castes and trades as well. For centuries before and after the birth of Christ, Kalinga was a formidable political power, extending from the Ganga river to the Godavari river. Approximately between the 11th and 16th centuries the name was twisted; the name Odra Desa was gradually transformed into Uddisa, Udisa, or Odisa, which in English became Orissa. The language of Odisa came to be known as Oriya.
 
Kalinga was already famous at the dawn of Indian history. Buddhist sources refer to the rule of King Brahmadutta in Kalinga at the time of the Buddha''s death. In the 4th century BC the first Indian empire builder, Mahapadma Nanda, conquered Kalinga, but the Nanda rule was short-lived. In 260 BC the Mauryan emperor Ashoka invaded Kalinga and fought one of the greatest and most bloody wars of ancient history. He then renounced war, became a Buddhist, and preached peace and non-violence in and outside India. In the 1st century BC the Kalinga emperor Kharavela conquered vast territories that collectively came to be called the Kalinga empire.
 
Kalinga became a maritime power beginning in the 1st century AD, and its overseas activities culminated in the 8th century with the establishment of the Shailendra empire in Java. Orissa was ruled during the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries by the powerful Bhauma-Kara dynasty and in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Soma dynasty. The Lingaraj temple at Bhubaneshwar, the greatest Shiva monument of India, was initiated by the king Yayati.
 
Medieval Orissa enjoyed a golden age under the Ganga Dynasty. Its founder, Anantavarma Chodagangadeva (1078-1147), ruled from the Ganges to the Godavari with "Cuttack" city as the state capital. He began the construction of the temple of Jagannaatha (Lord of the Universe) at Puri. Narasimhadeva 1 (1238-64) built the Sun Temple (Surya Mandira) of Konarka, one of the finest and best creations of Hindu architecture all over the world. In the 13th and 14th centuries, when much of India was overrun by the Muslims, independent Orissa remained a citadel of Hindu religion, philosophy, art, and architecture. The "Veera Kalinga Putras" (brave sons of Kalinga) were the last to give up, till it was conquered by betraying.
 
The Gangas were succeeded by the Surya dynasty. Its first king, Kapilendradeva (1435-66), won territories from his Muslim neighbours and greatly expanded the Orissa kingdom. His successor, Purushottamadeva, maintained these gains with difficulty. The next and the last Surya king, Prataparudradeva, became a disciple of the naamayogi avataar Chaitanya mahaprabhu, the great medieval saint, and became a pacifist. After his death (1540) Orissa''s power declined, and in 1568, when King Mukundadeva was killed by his own countrymen, Orissa lost its independence to the Afghan rulers of Bengal.
 
The Mughal emperor Akbar conquered Orissa from the Afghans in 1590-92. When the Mughal Empire fell in 1761, part of Orissa remained under the Bengal nawaabs, but the greater part was snatched by the Marathas. The Bengal sector came under British rule in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey; the Maratha sector was conquered by the British in 1803. Although after 1803 the British controlled the entire Oriya-speaking area, it continued to be administered as two units. It was not until April 1, 1936, that the British heeded calls for unification on a linguistic basis and constituted Orissa as a separate province; 26 Oriya princely states, however, remained outside the provincial administration. After the independence of India in 1947, all these princely states except Saraikela and Kharsawan (which merged with Bihar) became part of Orissa.
 
Geography:
The state can be broadly divided into four natural divisions: (1) the northern plateau, (2) the eastern ghats, (3) the central tract, and (4) the coastal plains. The northern plateau (in the northern part of the state) is an extension of the forest-covered, lightly settled, and mineral-rich Chot-Nagpur plateau centred in southern Bihar. The eastern ghats, extending roughly parallel to the coast, are remnants of a very ancient line of hills in eastern peninsular India; rising to heights of 3,600 feet (1,100 metres), the eastern ghats are forest-covered, provide a home for a variety of wildlife, and are populated by several tribal groups. The central tract comprises a series of plateaus and basins occupying the inland area west and north of the Eastern Ghats; the plateau areas provide scant resources, but several of the basins--notably the Kalahandi, Balangir, Hirakud, and Jharsuguda--have the soil and the irrigation facilities to support local agriculture. The coastal plains are formed of alluvial soils deposited by the many rivers flowing to the Bay of Bengal; locally the area is known as the Baleshwar Coastal Plain to the northeast, the Mahanadi delta in the centre, and the Chilika Plain to the southwest. The coastal plains are heavily populated, have extensive irrigation, and are devoted almost entirely to the growing of rice during the rainy season.
 
The main rivers are the Subarnarekha, Burabalang, Baitarani, Brahmani, Mahanadi, Rushikulya, and Vamsadhara. Notable mountain ranges are the Mahendra Hill (Giri; rising to 4,924 feet [1,501 metres]), the Malaya Hill (3,894 feet [1,187 metres]), and the Megasini (3,822 feet [1,165 metres]). Orissa''s Chilika Lake is the biggest saltwater lagoon in India.€€€

 
(See also: Orissa, Hinduism, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul )

Out of those sources the Hellenic stereotype was elaborated: barbarians are like children, unable to speak or reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious, cruel, unable to control their appetites and desires, politically unable to govern themselves. These stereotypes were voiced with much shrillness by writers like Isocrates in the 4th century BC who called for a war of conquest against Persia as a panacea for Greek problems. However, the Hellenic stereotype of barbarians was not a universal feature of Hellenic culture. Xenophon, ...

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The world's first star catalogue was made by Gan De, a Chinese astronomer in 4th century BC. Although no longer in serious use, mention should be made of Ptolemy's star catalogue published in the 2nd century as part of his Almagest, which lists 1,022 stars visible from Alexandria. It was the standard star catalogue in the Western and Arab worlds for over a thousand years. Ptolemy's catalogue was based almost entirely on an earlier one by Hipparchus from the 2nd century B.C. (Newton 1977; Rawlins 1982). An even earlier star catalogue was that of Timocharis of Alexandria, which ...

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Since around 400 BC the Chinese had a flying top that was used as a children's toy. This toy eventually made its way to Europe via trade and has been depicted in a 1463 European painting. "Pao Phu Tau" was a 4th century book in China that described some of the ideas in a rotary wing aircraft. The first somewhat practical idea of a human carrying helicopter was first conceived by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490, but it was not until after the invention of the powered aeroplane in the 20th century that actual models were produced. Develop ...

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