Thursday, August 30, 2012

ALIENS BUILDING CAMPS IN GOBI DESERT | Weekly World News



BEIJING – U.N. Extraterrestrial experts have confirmed that aliens are setting up camps in the Gobi desert – and they are growing by the day.

Google Maps satellite spotted a series of structures during a sweep of the Gobi desert in China and alerted the United Nations. The U.N. sent a team of experts to examine the pictures, which were then passed on, and reviewed, by the U.N. Panel on Extraterrestrials. The structures are quite large – covering an area of 5-10 square miles.

Experts on the Panel have confirmed that the photos depict camps for the aliens that are part of the ongoing alien invasion. “These are clearly base camps for aliens from Planet Zeeba,” said Dr. John Malley, the head of the U.N. Panel on Extraterrestrials.

via ALIENS BUILDING CAMPS IN GOBI DESERT | Weekly World News.

Bringing Tyuonyi’s Past Alive





By Adolph Bandelier

Here are some excerpts from the first and last chapters of The Delight Makers:
The Keres of Cochiti declare that the tribe to which they belong, occupied, many centuries before the first coming of the Europeans to New Mexico, the cluster of cave-dwellings, visible at this day although abandoned and in ruins, in that romantic and picturesquely secluded gorge called in the Keres dialect Tyuonyi, and in Spanish “El Rito de los Frijoles” [“bean creek”].

These ruins, inside as well as outside the northern walls of the cañon of the Rito, bear testimony to the tradition still current among the Keres Indians of New Mexico that the Rito, or Tyuonyi, was once inhabited by people of their kind, nay, even of their own stock. But the time when those people wooed and wed, lived and died, in that secluded vale is past long, long ago. Centuries previous to the advent of the Spaniards, the Rito was already deserted. Nothing remains but the ruins of former abodes and the memory of their inhabitants among their descendants. These ancient people of the Rito are the actors in the story which is now to be told; the stage in the main is the Rito itself. . . . 

“Umo,—‘grandfather!’” 

“To ima satyumishe,—‘come hither,my brother,’” another voice replied in the same dialect, adding, “see what a big fish I have caught.” 

It sounded as though this second voice had issued from the very waters of the streamlet.

Pine boughs rustled, branches bent, and leaves shook. A step scarcely audible was followed by a noiseless leap. On a boulder around which flowed streams of limpid water there alighted a young Indian. . . .

After twenty-one long and it may be tedious chapters, no apology is required for a short one in conclusion. I cannot take leave of the reader, however, without having made in his company a brief excursion through a portion of New Mexico in the direction of the Rito de los Frijoles.

It is a bare, bleak spot, in the centre of the opening we see the fairly preserved ruins of an abandoned Indian pueblo. . . .

Over and through the ruins are scattered the usual vestiges of primitive arts and industry,—pottery fragments and arrow-heads. Seldom do we meet with a stone hammer, whereas grinding slabs and grinders are frequent, though for the most part scattered and broken. We are on sacred ground in this crumbling enclosure. But who knows that we are not on magic ground also?

We might make an experiment. Let us suffer ourselves to be blindfolded, and then turn around three times from left to right. One, two, three! The bandage is removed. What can we see?

Nothing strange at first [but] a change has taken place in our immediate vicinity, a transformation on the spot where stood the ruin. The crumbling walls and heaps of rubbish are gone, and in their place newly built foundations are emerging from the ground; heaps of stone, partly broken, are scattered about; and where a moment ago we were the only living souls, now Indians move to and fro, busily engaging.

Some of them are breaking the stones into convenient size. The women are laying these in mortar made of the soil from the mesa, common adobe. We are witnessing the beginning of the construction of a small village. Farther down, on the edge of the timber, smoke arises; there the builders of this new pueblo dwell in huts while their house of stone is growing to completion. It is the month of May, and only the nights are cool.

These builders we easily recognize. They are the fugitives from the Rito.

And now we have, though in a trance, seen the further fate of those whose sad career has filled the pages of this story. We may be blindfolded again, turned about right to left; and when the bandage is taken from our eyes the landscape is as before, silent and grand. The ruins are in position again; an eagle soars on high.



Friday, August 24, 2012

Ellora





Like AJANTA, Ellora in India is the location of a series of cave temples hewn into the living rock. It is located 80 kilometers (48 mi.) southwest of Ajanta. There are 34 individual temples extending along a distance of two kilometers (1.2 mi.). Twelve of these are Buddhist, 17 are Hindu, and five are Jain. The Buddhist temples, which date between 200 B.C.E. and 600 C.E., include sancturaries and monasteries, with sleeping areas for monks cut into the rock. The most remarkable Hindu structure is the Kailasanatha temple. It is one of the world’s largest statues, because by removing more than 200,000 tons of basaltic rock, the makers created a highly decorated free-standing monolith. Its inspiration lay in the recreation of Mount Kailasa, the home of SIVA. Its construction falls in the reign of King Krishna I (c. 756–773). It is 50 meters long by 33 wide, and it stands to a height of 30 meters (165 by 109 by 99). Remarkably, it is covered in carvings depicting scenes from Hindu epics, including the demon Ravana shaking Mount Kailasa. A contemporary copperplate INSCRIPTION described it as “compelling the admiration of even the celestials, who pause on their heavenly course to gaze at the beauty of so magnificent a monument, and wonder how anyone could create such an extraordinary structures.”

Further reading: Burgess, J. Cave Temple of Ellora. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1999; Malandra, G. H. Unfolding a Mandala: The Buddhist Cave Temples at Ellora. SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies. New York: State University of New York, 1993; Pant, P. Ajanta and Ellora: Cave Temples of Ancient India. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1998.

Dhanyawadi





The city site of Dhanyawadi is located on the ARAKAN (now Rakhine) coast of western Myanmar (Burma). It was here that a cast statue of the Buddha, held to be a precise image of the Buddha himself, was housed until Arakan was conquered by King Bodawpaya in 1784 and the statue was taken to Mandalay. The city includes an encircling brick wall and moat that encloses an area of 442 hectares (1,105 acres). The central part of the city covers 26 hectares (65 acres) and is dominated by a second walled and moated precinct that housed the palace. The site lies on the Tarechaung River, by which boats can reach the Kaladan River and thence the Bay of Bengal. The Rakhine coast is strategically located to take advantage of trade with India, including participation in the maritime exchange route that developed during the early centuries C.E. In addition, the city commanded good lowland rice land and had easy access to forest products in the hills to the east. Aerial photographs reveal canals and water tanks in the city, which might well have been used to irrigate rice fields. The entire area within the walls almost certainly included open areas for fields as well as settlements.

The early history of the site is recorded on the inscription of King Anandcandra of MRAUK-U, dated to 729 C.E. The text recorded the kings who preceded him, noting that it was King Dvan Candra who first defeated 101 rivals before founding the city in the mid-fourth century C.E. and who ruled from 370 to 425 C.E. His city, so the inscription records, “laughed with heavenly beauty.” The PALI name Dhannavati means “grainblessed.” 



A hill adjacent to the royal palace houses the MAHAMUNI shrine, still one of the most venerated places in Burma, where the famous statue of Buddha once stood. The statue’s original form cannot be determined because it is so covered in gold. The origin of this image is buried deep in a tradition that describes how the Buddha visited Arakan; it was at that time that the statue was cast. While this deeply venerated image is no longer located at Dhanyawadi, many sandstone images that once formed part of the original temple complex survive, albeit in a damaged or modified condition. These represent BODHISATTVAS, door guardians, and guardians of the four cardinal points. One such image still bears an inscription naming Yaksasenapati Panada, in the late Gupta style, while the statues themselves also reveal Gupta influence of the fifth century C.E.