ESP Biography

•A clothing list from the library of Ashurbanipal listed a curious item. Discovered by Assyriologist A.H. Sayce in Mesopotamia, the Assyro-Babylonian list itself was a copy of an original Babylonian tablet from the reign of Khammuragas. The item on the list which had two ideographs “vegetable + cloth” read sindhu in Assyro-Babylonian. To make matters more interesting, Professor Sayce identified the Greek sindon and Hebrew satin also with the word sindhu. He also believed that cotton and the word ‘sindhu’ by which it was known must have traveled over sea through trade between the Phoenicians and the Indus citizens and not over land where the “original ‘s’ would have become ‘h’ in Persian mouths.” The find and its name suggested the Babylonian-Mesopotamians knew the Sindhu River and, by extrapolation, the Sanskrit/Indo-European speaking and cotton exporting people associated with the river. Sindhu is a Sanskrit/Indo-European word constructed from sim and dhu which taken together means trembling water. The word 'indus' is derived from the word 'sindhu'—as in Sindhu/Indus River after which the civilization and India the country is named--the sibilant ‘s’ weakened to ‘h’ in Persian. This archaeological find in Mesopotamia and the decipherment of the clothing list had predated the discovery of Indus Civilization. Then the discovery of woven cotton cloth and fine cotton cord in Mohenjo-daro and charred cotton seeds in Mehrgarh from 6th Millenium BCE soon established the Indus Civilization as the first people to grow and export cotton. The people of Indus Civilization were prolific traders. They had even established trading colonies in Mesopotamia and in the Persian Gulf region, to facilitate trade. Apparently, this trading relationship was considered important by their hosts: the Akkadian-Mesopotamians had a seal showing an Indus (Meluhha) interpreter sitting on the lap of a Mesopotamian person being received by a person of high rank. However, we do not yet know the language this translator from Indus Civilization spoke. So far there has been no Behistun inscription as in the case of Persian or a Rosetta stone as in the case of Egyptian that would show some bilingual text in Indus and a known language. It is, however, telling that Mesopotamians called cotton, sindhu. Based upon the item in the clothing list, and accompanying comments by A.H. Sayce in his Hibbert Lectures, philologist Max Muller in his Gifford Lectures had acknowledged that this placed Sanskrit-speaking people in India about at least 3000 BCE. While Indus script remains undeciphered, this clothing list throws a little light on the elusive subject. Join me as we take a closer look at the language of the Indus Civilization. We will examine the seals showing Indus signs, the direction of writing, the commonly occurring Indus signs and the various approaches being used to decipher the script.

Rigveda (Sanskrit for Rg or verse and Veda or knowledge), the oldest of the four Vedas is also the oldest surviving document of Indo-European culture. The geography of the Rigveda, undivided Punjab and surrounding areas of the Indian Subcontinent, is also the geography of the Indus Civilization. The heart of this is the land of the seven rivers or Sapta Sindhu. This is attested even by the Zoroastrian religious text Avesta as Hapta Hendu, the oldest parts, Yasna (Sanskrit yajna or yagya), of which are identical to the Rigveda, if one were to make some minor phonetic changes like substituting Sanskrit s for Avestan h. Among these Rigvedic Sapta Sindhu or Seven Rivers, Sarasvati River reigns supreme with more than 50 hymns devoted to it. One hymn, nadistuti sukta or hymn in praise of rivers, that goes, “…ghaṅghe yamune sarasvati śutudri stemaṃ sacatā paruṣṇyā | asiknyā marudvṛdhe vitastayārjīkīye śṛṇuhyāsuṣomayā || tṛṣṭāmayā prathamaṃ yātave sajūḥ sasartvā rasayāśvetyā tyā | tvaṃ sindho kubhayā ghomatīṃ krumummehatnvā sarathaṃ yābhirīyase ||…” also places the rivers in correct order from east to west, correctly placing the Sarasvati between Yamuna and Sutlej (Sutudri). Now, while the other rivers mentioned in this hymn are still flowing, Sarasvati is a mere stream that carries its name, with its vigor preserved only in the memories of devout Hindus. It turns out, the faith of the devotees is not misplaced. Satellite imagery shows that the Sarasvati was once indeed a mighty river, up to 10 kilometers wide, until its main tributaries Sutlej and the Yamuna River changed course resulting in its drying up, sometime around 1900 BCE. Today, Sarasvati River is identified as the Ghaggar in India and Hakra in Pakistan. In a survey conducted in a 300 miles section of the Hakra riverbed in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan, some 414 archaeological sites were discovered. This is surprising when we compare this to just three dozen Indus Civilization sites that lie along the Indus River. 80% of these 414 sites that lit up the Indus/Harappan Civilization map along the old Sarasvati River, on the Pakistan side, were dated to 4th or 3rd millennium BCE indicating that the Sarasvati flowed mightily like a “fortress of metal” during the Early Harappan (2500-2200 BCE) and Harappan Civilization ( 2200-1700 BCE) time. In other words, Sarasvati, where we can presume the oldest Vedic texts were composed, flowed vigorously as the Indus Civilization flowered along its banks. We will examine this and other archaeological evidence, including the fire altars along with bathing platforms in temple complexes and houses in Kalibangan, Lothal, Rakhigarhi and Banawali, the seals, the script, the Vedic lifestyle from clues in the Vedic texts, and a new hypothesis about the administrative set-up that enabled a highly advanced and uniform civilization to flower and thrive in the one million square mile territory of Indus Civilization, to find an answer to our query as to whether the Indus Civilization was also the setting for the Vedas.

Two cities dominated the stories about the fascinating discoveries of the ancient Indus/Harappan Civilization for the longest time: Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Archeologists who carbon-dated the civilization to 2600-1900 B.C.E. times were puzzled. Somehow the brilliantly planned cities seemed to have sprung overnight, complete with their citadel and lower towns, houses with en suite bathrooms and toilets, sophisticated sewage systems, plentiful water from wells and reservoirs, standardized bricks, weights and measures, uniform writing and crafts across distances that spanned hundreds of kilometers. How did these cities come about? Then, in 1968, a mysterious mound on the banks of the Bolan River attracted the attention of a homeowner. A team of French archeologists came in to investigate and excavated the remains of the ancient settlement of Mehrgarh, pushing back the history of the area to before 7000 B.C.E. times. The site revealed evidence of a hunting and food-gathering people who moved to a life of cereal and livestock domestication. It told of a people who transitioned from hand-made to wheel-made pottery and lived in houses that improved over time. These enterprising people had an exchange system for procuring raw material for their jewelry from hundreds of kilometers away! This was the flip book that showed how those urban cities came about. We will put the spotlight on Mehrgarh and cities that light up the Harappan Civilization with their unique profiles--cities that are slowly emerging out of oblivion and should be known to the world. We will visit Amri, Allahdino, Balakot, Nal, Kulli, Kot Diji, Chanhudaro, Dholavira, Rojdi, Lothal, Kalibangan, Burzhom, Bhirrana, Banawali, Rakhigarhi, Surkotada among others. We will pay special attention to their art, architecture and assets that made them occupy a special place in the Indus mosaic. We will also study the internal and external land and sea trade-routes of the Indus Civilization that connected far-flung Harappan outposts of Shortughai in Afghanistan, and Sutkagen Dor on the Makran Coast to sites in Mesopotamia, Iran, Oman and Bahrain.

We don’t think about them, but they are everywhere. They power our flashlights, our smoke alarms, our watches, beacons, pacemakers, phones, laptops, cars, planes, and space explorers that boldly go where no man has gone before. Who conjured up a battery? Did they get their start with the caveman toting a smoldering piece of coal to have a ready source of fire, an electroplater or a temple magician? Or was it years of painstaking work after observing natural phenomena? We will start with the earliest known batteries that belong to the Parthians from about 200 B.C.E and leap to the 18th century when the documented quest to convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy began in earnest, in labs and hobby rooms, moving from the wet end of the spectrum to the dry. We will look into batteries that are powering our electric cars and lift the smoke to peer into the cause of battery fires that are keeping our dreams grounded. We will also examine the state of the art nuclear batteries powering our Mars Rovers and the Voyager space explorers that, at last check, were venturing out of our solar system. In tracing the arc of batteries, we will learn about the gadgets they enabled including communication systems, consumer electronics, life saving systems and weapons that won world wars. In the process we will learn about the ordinary and some really extraordinary scientists who gave their all to push the envelop in the quest for portable power. Volta, Galvani, Davy, Faraday, Franklin, Henry, Edison, Marconi, among others, will all grace our stage in this story of battery.

Natural Philosophers were aware of fish that were capable of giving electric shock. They also knew that objects like amber when rubbed with fur were capable of attracting straw or feathers. Thales of Miletos from 600 B.C.E. had observed that friction made amber magnetic in contrast to minerals such as magnetite that needed no rubbing. But, what good was this barely understood phenomenon other than for amusement? Then, sometime in the 11th century, magnets came from the east and while they were mysterious, they were also useful: they could guide ships. However, not until the 16th century when William Gilbert differentiated the lodestone effect from amber or static electricity in his scientific bestseller De Magnete and coined terms such as electricus from ‘electron’--the Greek word for amber--would electricity be considered anything more than an intellectual curiosity. Then scientists like Orsted, Ampere, Faraday, Franklin, Hertz, and Maxwell, among others, propelled further research into the field linking the twin phenomena of Electricity and Magnetism. We will examine the work of these scientists in this seminar. We will also trace the journey of electricity as it came out of university labs and royal societies, caught the imagination of poets writers and itinerant entertainers, and influenced popular culture.

Dried plums? Check. Pickled vegetables? Check. Rice wine? Check. Soybeans? Check. Are we in for a midnight feast out of the pages of an Enid Blyton book? No, but read on dear reader. The list goes on to tubs of earth, horses, silk, porcelain, lacquer ware, and otters. Why otters? As Europe rubbed the dark ages out of its eyes, Son of Heaven, Chinese Emperor Zhu Di launched a massive naval operation to acquaint the world with the majesty of the Middle Kingdom and to bring the neighboring port states into its tribute paying system. In 1405, he commissioned his loyal eunuch Zheng He with the task of launching Ming Dynasty’s pioneering voyages into the unknown seas splashing the shores of Asia and Africa and some think beyond, several decades before Columbus, Vasco De Gama, and Magellan. Come then with me to gain a fresh perspective on the world as it could have been as we cruise the uncharted oceans with the adept circumnavigators of 15th century China. We will start from Nanjing China, pick up savvy sailors from local seas, fight the pirates in the Malaccan Strait, amaze the landlubbers as we move 28,000 men on towering nine-mast junks, unfurling our billowing sails, eclipsing the sun. But, what’s this? Alas, we will come back to a China that had turned inwards, a China that did not think twice before expunging the accomplishments of its navy from its records. Champa? Check, Siam? Check, Palembang? Check, Samudra? Check, Chittagong? Check, Ceylon? Check, Calicut? Check, Hormuz? Check, Djofar? Check, Aden? Check, Mogadishu? Check, Malindi? Check, China???

Imagine, if you will, a bunch of archaeologists snooping around a field near Tell el Amarna on the east bank of the Nile on a fine morning in 1887. Imagine also an irate wife of an Egyptian farmer, throwing pieces of baked clay at these snoops, to send them on their way. Now, really stretch your imagination and see these archaeologists straining to catch these flying clay pieces, seeing all too clearly the cuneiform writing on them and almost fainting in their amazement as they realize what they have in their hands, then beseeching the woman for more of these baked clay pieces. But this is the stuff of legend. Not far from truth though. The archaeologists began looking for more and stumbled upon the most important clay-tablet archives that have ever been found, the records of king Amenophis IV. These Amarna tablets were easily readable, written in Akkadian, the ancient language for international negotiations in the Ancient East. They spoke of raids by bands of Hittite warriors across the far northern frontier of Egypt into Syria. But there were also actual Hittite letters indicating more amicable relations. The range of subject in these Amarna letters for the first time proved that the Hittites had been a Great Power and they lived in Asia Minor or Anatolia. We will use these to take a look at the mighty Hittites who took on the powerful Egyptian empire. We will discover why the Egyptians under Ramesses II and his Hittite counterpart Hattusilis III signed a peace treaty several decades after Ramesses II supposedly won a battle and celebrated his victory in the battle of Kadesh over the Hittites? We will also examine how the Hittites got to be such mighty warriors, with their state of the art chariots and their superior horsemanship? What did their neighbors, the Mitannis, who invoked Vedic deities in their treaties, have to do with it? We’ll go deep into the happenings in Anatolia and Syria around 1400 B.C.E.

Following the collapse of the western Roman empire, as Europe descended into the dark ages, the torch of wisdom was kept alive in the houses of wisdom in Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, and Uzbekistan where Egyptian, Greek, Indian, and Persian knowledge was translated into Arabic. The manuscripts brought by these scholars were deemed worth their weight in gold at these incubators of science, where ancient ideas were studied, improved and extended. This knowledge was then consolidated in books that were translated back into Latin as Europe awoke to Renaissance. Behind all this cross-cultural meeting and testing of ideas was the generous patronage of Al Mamun (786-833), the Caliph of Baghdad. But sources and names get lost in translation and not many people now know or give credit to these scientists who deserve a place of their own in the annals of history. They should be known as well if not better than Leonardo da Vinci, Wright Brothers, William Harvey who drew their inspiration from these medieval scientists. We’ll look at the remarkable achievements of Al Haitham, Al Jazari, Banu Musa brothers, Al Khawarizmi, Abbas Bin Firnas, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, Al Idrisi, Piri Reis, Ibn Majid among others. We’ll also accompany the intrepid traveler Ibn Battuta as he journeys from Tangiers, Morocco to go beyond India and back in his epic journey, in 1325. Come with me, as I look back at this golden age of science.

The story reads like a whodunit. It was 1829. Undivided India was under colonial rule. A British army deserter stumbles upon the ruins of an ancient city near the modern village of Harappa. Thinking that he had at last found Sangala, the capital city of King Porus, who had met Alexander in battle in 326 B.C.E. he notes its location. Years pass by without anybody doing anything. Then, around 1857, while laying the 100 mile long railway line from Lahore to Multan, the British, unravel ruins of an ancient city by using its bricks for ballast, thinking that the baked bricks belong to a modern abandoned city. The excavations finally begin at Mohenjo-Daro. The photo of a seal discovered there makes it to the Illustrated London News in 1924 making Dr. E. Mackay sit up and take notice in Chicago. He realizes that he has an identical seal, with the strange writing. He had found it in the foundation of a Mesopotamian temple in Kish. It was unlike anything that had been excavated in the ruins of Sumerian civilization and had been deemed foreign to the place. This was the connection. He immediately writes to the British guy heading the operations in India. This then was the start of the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization--a civilization with its trade links to the Mesopotamians and coastal cities all along the Persian Gulf. A civilization about which Sargon the great has said to have boasted in the 2200 B. C. E. that its ships docked at the quay of Agade. We will see what they have discovered so far, debunking the myth of its collapse at the hands of Aryan invaders.

Master Administrators The time was about 500 B.C.E. To speed communication for a smooth running of the empire that stretched from India to Egypt, a Royal Messenger Service was instituted. Relay stations were placed at intervals equivalent to the distance a horse can run at a moderate speed without collapsing from fatigue, about 14 miles. When a message was dispatched, the relay system operated day and night, making it possible for news to travel 240 miles per day. This time was remarkable when compared to the three months it took for the wagons carrying goods to travel that same route. To facilitate trade between Persia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, they dug a canal that linked the northern tip of the Red Sea with the Nile River to the west. From Nile, all ships could thereafter sail north to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. They were master administrators in operating their enormous political enterprise. They had a genius for devising solutions to the problems of imperial statecraft. In this seminar, we will study the accomplishments of the early kings of Persia, looking at their unique achievements.

Seidenstrasse or Silk Road was coined by the German explorer and geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 and romanticized by medieval accounts of travelers such as Marco Polo who described the route from Baghdad to China. But the route or routes were in existence from first century C.E. at least and throughout two millennia luxuries and other goods were traded by dauntless traders of these ancient silk roads. The best merchandise, according to one ambassador to Timur, came from China: especially silk, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls and rhubarb. Rhubarb?! Travel with me on this inhospitable terrain. We will begin our journey with the battle that generated a desire for silk: the battle between the Romans and the Parthians where the Romans got their first look at Silk. We will take a sneak peek into the secretive art of silk making and as a bonus get a peek into the lifestyles of people who rear the precious cocoons. We will carry some gold, religion, furniture and fashion from the west and bring back the riches and spice of the east on our way back to Rome. We will encounter bandits, cross Taklamakan desert, follow the path of parched bones, and stop in oasis towns and the cities of Mediterranean to trade our precious loads and exchange some news.

Have you ever gone for a hike on the trails that dot the San Francisco Bay Area. In this seminar, we will go on an imaginary hike through a redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains and look at the undergrowth and the trees that shade our trail. This will also give us an opportunity to study plant classification. We will learn about the common names of the plants we come across and also learn about a plant's genus and species name that make up a plant's scientific name. We will find out who Linnaeus was and how he brought some method to the madness of naming plants and knowing that one is actually talking about a unique plant. We will also look at some edible and some poisonous plants that grow all around us.

Seidenstrasse or Silk Road was coined by the German explorer and geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 and romanticized by medieval accounts of travelers such as Marco Polo who described the route from Baghdad to China. But the route or shall we say routes were in existence from first century C.E. at least and throughout two millennia luxuries were imported along these difficult routes. The best merchandise according to one ambassador to Timur came from China: especially silk, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls and rhubarb. Rhubarb?! Travel with me then, if you have the time, on this inhospitable terrain. We will carry some gold, religion, furniture and fashion from the west and bring back the riches and spice of the east on our way back to Rome. We will rest our tired feet in caravansarais in oasis towns and the cities of Mediterranean.

The time was about 500 B.C.E. To speed communication for a smooth running of the empire that stretched from India to Egypt, a Royal Messenger Service was instituted. Relay stations were placed at intervals equivalent to the distance a horse can run at a moderate speed without collapsing from fatigue, about 14 miles. When a message was dispatched, the relay system operated day and night, making it possible for news to travel 240 miles per day. This time was remarkable when compared to the three months it took for the wagons carrying goods to travel that same route. To facilitate trade between Persia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, they dug a canal that linked the northern tip of the Red Sea with the Nile River to the west. From Nile, all ships could thereafter sail north to ports on the eastern Mediterranean. They were master administrators in operating their enormous political enterprise. They had a genius for devising solutions to the problems of imperial statecraft. In this seminar, we will study the accomplishments of the early kings of Persia, looking at their unique achievements.