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El crucero Adonia se convirtió en el primero en arribar a Cuba proveniente de Estados Unidos luego de más de cincuenta años que un crucero llegara a la isla. (Fernando Medina / Cubahora)
El crucero Adonia se convirtió en el primero en arribar a Cuba proveniente de Estados Unidos luego de más de cincuenta años que un crucero llegara a la isla. (Fernando Medina / Cubahora)
El Crucero Fathom Adonia, de la compañía Carnival, llega el 2 de mayo de
2016 a La Habana. Foto: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate
Con la llegada del maestro constructor Adonías Álvarez, el proyecto del comedor avanzó rápidamente. En el fondo se ven las aulas que también estaban en proceso de levantar.
Ajaccio, Corsica. In the Place de Gaulle is an impressive statue of Napoleon, mounted, surrounded by his four brothers. Interestingly, he made three of his brothers kings of countries he'd subjugated. Why only three? It's not as though any brother would be disqualified by virtue of being corrupt, brutal or dissolute, is it?
150 min...sométete
150 min...rebélate
The cards inside read:
150 minutos para sentir, imaginar, rememorar, descubrir.
150 minutos para la contemplación.
150 minutos para incomodarte, alterarte, impacientarte.
150 minutos para padecer.
our choice... we chose to submit.
El crucero Adonia se convirtió en el primero en arribar a Cuba proveniente de Estados Unidos luego de más de cincuenta años que un crucero llegara a la isla. (Fernando Medina / Cubahora)
Fotografía exposada en el Museu Picasso de Barcelona de l'1de juliol fins al 15 de setembrede 2007, amb motiu de l'exposició Lee Miller i Picasso, juntament amb altres alumnes de la facultat de Belles Arts de la Universitat de Barcelona.
We loved the luxuriously large and roomy dining area. Lots of room makes for a nice intimate dining experience with your partner.
Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree of Western tradition is found in ancient Egypt in the form of the palm tree (image of the messiah Baal-Tamar), and in Rome in the form of the fir tree (image of the messiah Baal-Berith). In the illustration at the top, the Carinthian fir tree, erected in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, for the Christmas celebration, facing the large Egyptian obelisk that Nero had installed in the center of his arenas.
Origins of Christmas
by Ann-Margaret “Maggie” Yonan and David Gavary, California, USA.
Posted: Monday, January 08, 2007 at 02:02 PM UT
These traditions of the religions of the world all have their roots in the Assyrian religious belief system of Ashurism.
The ancient Assyrians celebrated three major festivals as part of the ritual of the changing seasonal cycles. One of these festivals was the Assyrian New Year, the Akitu, celebrated in Assyria on March 21st, the Vernal Equinox. The second was the Autumn Akitu Festival, celebrated on September 21 st, which signified the end of the harvest. The third major festival was the Winter Solstice, which signified the birth of the sun. These three major celebrations in Assyria were inspired by the Assyrian religious belief system, and each one of them had their roots in the Mother-Goddess worship.
Going all the way back to the Paleolithic era, we find that Neanderthalensis as well as Homo Sapien worshiped the Mother-Goddess in exactly the same manner, no matter where they lived geographically. To these early men and women, she represented fertility, fecundity, and fruitfulness. She also became associated with the caves in which they dwelt, and the cave symbolized the womb of the Goddess which bore them. Every cave excavated from France to Siberia to Shanidar in Bet-Nahrain, the 130 Goddess figurines found outside of the caves proved the ritual of worship would be conducted outside, while the inside of the cave was the holy temple in which fantastic drawings of animals were found, depicting the various life forms born out of the womb of the Mother-Goddess. Among the various life forms drawn on the cave walls, the Bull/Bison was more common than any other life form. To these early cave dwellers, the Bull/Bison horns resembled the crescent moon, which is why the Mother-Goddess was always sculpted wearing a crown of Bull horns, or holding the Bull horn in her hand, while looking at the moon. In this manner, the Mother-Goddess became closely associated with the moon worship in Mesopotamia.
In Sumer, the Mother-Goddess was Inanna. In Ashur, Calha, and Nineveh she was Ishtar. In Arbella, (modern Arbil) she was referred to as Ishtar Arbella. All the first temples of worship in ancient Assyria were erected for the Mother-Goddess worship, and most of the old temples were associated with the worship of the moon, which was later called Sin. To look at the early sculptures found in Nineveh by Archaeologist Sir Henry Layard, the Mother-Goddess is nearly always depicted wearing a crown of horns. In the ancient Assyrian language, the Bison or “Bull” was called Tur, as in A Tur, (The Bull). It also meant “ruler” as in descending from the holy royal family of rulers or “Gods”. Tur in the sense of the “Bull,” becomes Taurus in Latin, and in the sense of “ruler,” it becomes Tauranus. The same word in Assyria for bull was also for ruler, or prince. Hence the horned bull signified the “Mighty Prince”, thereby pointing back to the first of those “mighty ones”, who under the name of Guebres, Gabara, or Cabiri, “mighty,” occupied so conspicuous a place in the ancient world, and to whom the deified Assyrian monarchs covertly traced back the origin of their greatness and might.
In every ancient culture, we find the horn symbol used to deify rulers and monarchs. The founder of Babylon, Pelus, or sometimes referred to as Belus, or Pel, or Bel, or even Baal, “the confounder of language”, and the “scatterer abroad” who was no other than Cush, the father of Nimrod, was actually deified and given a crown of Horns. His son, Nimrod, also known as Queen Shamiram’s husband, and later is reincarnated as Ninos, sometimes referred to as Tammuz, was said to have been the actual father of the Gods, and we see him as being the first of deified mortals wearing the horned crown reserved for rulers of divine nature. Nimrod was called, the “mighty one” and his name means “mighty hunter of Lions.” Kronos, was also called the “Horned One” and depicted wearing a crown of horns. Similarly, the Greek God, Bacchus, was also depicted wearing a crown of horns and his epithet reads “Bull-horned.” The King of Seljukian Turks, who originally came from the Euphrates region, was in a similar manner represented with three horns on his head. Similarly, Zernebogus, (Zer-nebo-gus) the “Black” malevolent, ill-omened divinity of the Anglo-Saxons, was depicted wearing horns. The Abyssinian chiefs adorned their heads with horns. The Hindu God Vishnu wears a crown of the open circle or band, with three horns standing erect from it. The Red Indian chiefs also have their heads arrayed with horns during the Buffalo Dance. The Hebrews wrote that Moses was to have come away from the burning bush with horns on his head, which in fact is how Michael Angelo depicts him. The Assyrian Bull of heaven, Lamasu, wears a crown of the tri-horn, representing divine authority. Even today, the Assyrian patriarchal hat, (kirikhta) carries that very symbol, of the tri-horn, which has been modified to look like a three-tiered fez or hat.
The tradition of deification of ancient rulers was based on the Sumerian concept of reincarnation, where the holy “husband king” dies and is reincarnated as the “son” via a virgin birth, as in the case of Enlil. In this manner, the son and the mother become holy, and are both deified. The most familiar example of deification of the mother and son, is the virgin mother Mary and her holy son, Jesus, (the reincarnated God). Such was the case of Queen Shamiram and her deified son, the Babylonian messiah, long before the Christian era. The story was described on clay tablets found By Henry Layard in Nineveh, as well as Greek and Roman Classical literature. The scriptural accounts of Nimrod and the Armenian version of the “Chronicles of Eusebius” confirm the identity and the time period in which Ninos is made the son of Belus, or Bel, and where the historical Bel is Cush, and this is further confirmation of Ninos being Nimrod.
When we look at what is written about Semiramis, (Queen Shamiram) the wife of Ninos, the evidence receives full development. In Daniel xi 38, we read of a God called Ala Mahozine, (i.e. the God of fortifications). In the records of antiquity, there is no such a God, but ample evidence of a goddess of fortification does exist. That goddess is Cybele, who is universally represented with a turreted crown, or with a fortification on her head. Ovid asks “Why was Rhea or Cybele thus represented?” Ovid answers his own question by stating that the reason why the statue of Cybele wore a crown of towers is, “because she first erected them in cities.” The first city in the world after the flood, that had towers and encompassing walls, was Babylon. Ovid himself tells us that it was Semiramis, the first queen of that city, who was believed to have “surrounded Babylon with a wall of brick.” Semiramis, the first deified queen of that city must have been the prototype of the goddess who “first made towers in cities.” When we look at the Ephesian Diana, we find evidence to the very same effect. In general, Diana was depicted as a virgin, and the patroness of virginity; and she was the mother of the gods, who wore a turreted crown, such as the one that can be contemplated without being forcibly reminded of the tower of Babel. This tower-bearing Diana is by ancient scholars expressly identified with Semiramis. When, therefore, we remember that Rhea or Cybele, the tower-bearing goddess, was, in fact, a Babylonian goddess, and that Semiramis, when deified, was worshipped under the name of Rhea.
There is no reason to believe that Semiramis alone built the battlements of Babylon. We have the express testimony of the ancient historian, Megasthenes, as preserved by Abydenus, that” it was “Belus” who “surrounded Babylon with a wall.” As Bel, the “confounder,” who began the city and tower of Babel, left both unfinished. Who finished them? This could only have been his son Ninos, who inherited his father’s title, and who was the first actual king of Babylon, and consequently Nimrod. The real reason that Semiramis, the wife of Ninos, gained the glory of finishing the fortification of Babylon, was, that she became esteemed to the ancient people to hold a prepondering position, and to have attributed to her all the different characters that belonged to her husband. Having ascertained, then, one of the characters in which the deified wife was worshipped as the mother-goddess, we may form the conclusion what was the corresponding character of the deified husband. Layard distinctly indicates his belief that Rhea or Cybele, the “tower-crown” goddess, was the female counterpart of the “deity presiding over the bulwarks or fortresses; and that this deity was Ninos or Nimrod”. We have more evidence, still, from all the scattered notes of antiquity, which all indicate that the first deified king of Babylon, under a name that identifies him as the husband of Rhea, the “tower-bearing” goddess. That name is Kronos or Saturn. It is well known that Kronos, or Saturn, was Rhea’s husband; but it is not well known who was Kronos himself.
Traced back to his original, that “divinity” is proved to have been the first king of Babylon. Theophilus of Antioch shows that Kronos in the east was worshipped under the names of Bel and Baal; and from Eusebius we learn that the first of the Assyrian kings, whose name was Belus, was also by the Assyrians called Kronos. Kronos signifies the “horned-one.” As a horn is a well-known symbol in the Middle East for power or might, which applied to the scriptural Nimrod, the Geber, or (gabbara in modern terms) “the mighty one,” (Genesis x. 8). “He began to be great on earth.” The name Kronos, as the classical reader is well aware, is applied to Saturn as the “Father of the Gods”. Nimrod was known as the “Father of the Gods” as being the first of deified mortals.
The meaning of the name Kronos, “the Horned One” as applied to Nimrod, fully explains the origin of the remarkable symbol, so frequently occurring among the Nineveh sculptures, the gigantic horned man-bull, (Lamasu) as representing the great divinities in Assyria. The word Zar-Nebo-Gus is the ancient Assyrian phrase and means the “seed of the prophet Cush,” (in modern dialect, “zara d’Nabo Cush”). Most Biblical and antiquity scholars believe that, under the name Bel, as distinguished from Baal, Cush was the great sooth-sayer or “prophet”, worshipped in Babylon. But some scholars have written that Bel and Nebo were two different titles for the name God, and that is a “prophetic” God. Kitto comments on the words written in Isiah xlvi 1, “: Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth”and writes, “The word seems to come from the ancient Assyrian word “nibba,” to deliver an oracle” or to prophesy, and hence would mean to prophesy. Thus, Nimrod inherited the title, “Zer-Nebo-Gus,” the “great seed of Cush.”
Turning to Layard for a moment, we first find “the Assyrian Hercules,” that is Nimrod, the giant, as he is called in the Septuagint version of Genesis, without club, spear, or weapons of any kind, attacking a bull. Having overcome it, he sets the bull’s horns on his head, as a trophy of victory, and a symbol of power. Hence, the hero is not only represented with horns and hoofs above, but from the middle downwards, with the legs and cloven feet of the bull, like the Lamasu.
In many countries, horns became the symbols of sovereign power, as Babylon became the “center of the world.” As sovereignty in Nimrod’s case was founded on physical force, so too were the symbols of the horns of the bull were the symbols of that physical force. In accordance with this, we read in “Sanchuniathon” that, “Astarte put on her own head the head of a bull as the ensign of royalty.” In Assyria, the three-horned cap was one of the “sacred emblems. The power connected with it was of “celestial” origin, as it represented the Assyrian trinity. To this mode of representing the mighty kings of Babylon and Assyria, who imitated Nimrod as his successors, there is manifest allusion in Isiah viii. 6-8: “For as much as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore, behold the Lord bringeth upon them the waters of the river, strong and mighty, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his banks. And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even unto the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.” This attests to the position of Nimrod as the first “mighty one.”
Nin, or Ninos, which means “the son” in ancient Assyrian language, held the same position in Babylon as Cupid, the son of Venus, as she becomes the mother of gods, and her son becomes the “boy God.” Thus, when Nimrod dies, he is reincarnated as his son, the “boy god” the son of Shamiram. In this manner, the woman that bore him of virgin birth, Shamiram queen of Assyria, becomes the deified mother. The historian Apollodorus states that, “Ninos is Nimrod.” And then in conformity with the identity of Ninos and Nimrod, we find, in one of the most celebrated sculptures of ancient Babylon, Ninos and his wife Semiramis represented as actively engaged in the pursuits of the chase, “the quiver bearing Semiramis” being a fit companion for the “mighty Hunter before the Lord”.
When we compare the Egyptian Khonso, the “Huntsman” with the Latin Consus, the God of horse races, who “produced the horse,” and the Centaur of Babylon, to whom was attributed the honor of being the author of horsemanship, we see all the roads leading to Babylon. Khonso, the son of the great goddess-mother, Isis, seems to have been generally represented as a full-grown God. The Babylonian divinity was also represented very frequently in Egypt in the same way as in the land of his nativity, (i.e. as a child in his mother’s arms). This way, Osiris, “the son, the husband of his mother,” was often exhibited, and what we learn of this God, equally as in the case of Khonso, shows in his original, was none other than Nimrod. The connection is that Nimrod, as the child of the Babylonian mother-goddess, Shamriam, was worshipped in the character of Ala mahozine, “the God of fortifications.” Osiris, in like manner, the child of the Egyptian Modonna, was equally celebrated as “the strong chief of the buildings.” He was worshipped in Egypt with every physical characteristic of Nimrod.
Semiramis, (queen Shamiram) gained glory from her dead and deified husband, Nimrod, and in the course of time both of them, under the names of Rhea and Nin, or “Goddess-Mother and son” were worshipped with enthusiasm that was incredible, and their images were set-up everywhere and adored. According to the ancient Assyrian doctrine of transmigration of souls, all that was needful was just to teach that Ninos had appeared in the person of a posthumous son, of a fair complexion, supernaturally borne by his widowed wife after the father had gone to glory. The same concept was used to deify Osiris in Egypt, and was depicted as a baby in the arms of his mother-goddess. In Babylon, the posthumous child, as identified with his father, and inheriting all of his father’s glory, yet possessing more of his mother’s looks, came to be the favorite type of the Madonna’s son.
The son, thus worshipped in his mother’s arms, was looked upon as vested with all the attributes of his father, and called by almost all the names of the promised messiah. As Christ is called in the Hebrew Old Testament, Adoni, (the Lord) so was the reincarnated infant, Ninos called Adon or Adonis. In Babylon as in Egypt, the “boy God” was held as the great object of love and adoration, as the God through whom “goodness and truth were revealed to mankind.” He was regarded as the predestined heir of all things, and on the day of his birth, it was believed that a voice was heard to proclaim, “The Lord of all the earth is born.” In this character, he was styled “King of kings and Lord of lords.” He was regarded as Lord of the invisible world, and “judge of the dead,” and it was taught that, in the world of spirits, all must appear before his dreaded tribunal, to have their destiny assigned them. As the true messiah, he was prophesized under the title of the “Man whose name was the branch.”
Ninos was not only celebrated as the “branch of Cush,” but as the “Branch of God”, graciously given to earth to “free mankind from the “fear” of God” so that mankind can go about their business of building the earth, which is what the Akitu is all about, and it means “building life on earth”. The Assyrian messiah was worshipped in Babylon under the name El-Bar, or “Son of God.” Under this very name, he is introduced by Berosus, as the second of Babylonian sovereigns. Under this name he has been found in the sculptures of Nineveh, as testified by Layard, the name Bar, “the son”, having the sign denoting El or “God “prefixed to it. Under the same name, El Bar was found by Sir Henry Rawlinson, the names Beltis and the “Shining Bar” being in immediate juxtaposition. Under the name Bar, he was worshipped in Egypt, as well. In Rome he was worshipped under the name the “Eternal Boy”.
Diodorus Siculus tells us that, “there stood three images of the great divinities of Assyria, and one of these was of a woman grasping a serpent’s head”. The same image was transferred to the Greek tradition is of Diana grasping the head of a snake, for Diana and Semiramis were one and the same. As time wore away, and the facts of Semiramis’s history became obscured, her son’s birth was boldly declared to be, “miraculous.” That the birth of the Great Deliverer was to be miraculous was widely known long before the Christian era. Similarly, in the Buddhist tradition it was foretold that a virgin was to bring forth a child to bless the world.
In Assyria as in Egypt, Greece, India, or Rome, the ancient mother-goddesses were referred to as the “queen of heaven.” Every quality of beauty, mercy, and gentleness was regarded as centered in her; and when death was upon her, she was fabled to have been deified and changed into a dove, “D’Iune” in ancient Assyrian, or “yona” in modern Assyrian dialect. In Babylon, the queen of heaven became known as “Z’emir-amit” meaning “the branch bearer,” and in this way her image was immortalized as the olive branch bearing dove, which is also an epithet for the “first queen” after the flood. In the sculptures found in Nineveh, this tradition also represents the third member of the Assyrian trinity. In confirmation of this view, the Assyrian “Juno” or the “virgin Venus” was identified with air. Thus, Julius Firmicus, in “De Error” writes, “The Assyrian and part of the Africans wish the air to have the supremacy of the elements, for they have consecrated this same element under the name Juno, whose symbol was that of the third person of the Assyrian Trinity. Why? Because the same word in the ancient Assyrian, which signifies air, signifies also the “Holy Ghost,” thus Semiramis was the holy ghost in the Assyrian trinity.
The Assyrian holy trinity comprised of the dead but deified Nimrod/Ninos, who was slain but was then reincarnated as the “Nin” the holy child, born of virgin birth, through the virgin mother-Goddess, Queen Shamiram, queen of Assyria. This holy trinity was carried into Egypt, where Nimrod was renamed Osiris, who also died and was reincarnated as the holy child Osiris, born of virgin birth through the “virgin” mother-goddess, Queen Isis. This tradition became part of the entire orient, including the Indus Valley, and later the Roman Empire, which gave birth to the Roman Catholic tradition of the Papacy at Vatican.
Without exception, all the Deified mortals or “Gods” of the ancient world were said to have been conceived during the Spring Equinox and born on December 25 th, (the Winter Solstice). If we count from March 21st to December 25th we would conceive the traditional 9 months of gestation.
The son of the Babylonian queen of heaven, Shamiram was said to have been conceived during the Assyrian New Year, the Akitu, and born on December 25th, the Winter Solstice. “Yule” in ancient Assyrian is the name for “infant” or “little child” as the 25th of December was called “Yule day” or child’s day. Since it was Nimrod that is reincarnated as the “Yule” or in modern dialect, yala or yaluda, and the child in Assyria was first known as the unconquerable sun, which is why he must be born during the Winter Solstice. He is reincarnated as “Tammuz,” but also as the “branch of the tree,” (as in the tradition of the Assyrian Tree of Life). The divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great God, (after that God, Nimrod, had been cut down to pieces by the enemy). Thus, the great God, cut-off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolized as a huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great serpent, the symbol of life restoring, wraps itself around the dead stock of the tree, and lo, at its side, up sprouts a young tree, of an entirely different kind, that is destined never to be cut down by hostile power, and which is Ninos. This tree was most often a palm tree in southern Mesopotamia, which is why the messiah was called Baal-Tamar, but in the Nineveh plains it was a cedar, or as it is called today, “an evergreen,” which is why in northern Mesopotamia, the messiah was known as Baal-Berith. To the Assyrians, the tree symbolized the new-born God, Baal-Berith, (Lord of the covenant) and thus shadowed forth the perpetual and ever-lasting nature of his power, now that after having fallen before his enemies, he had risen triumphant over them all. Therefore, the 25 th of December, the day of the birth of the unconquered sun/son, represented the death of the slain Nimrod, deified as the Sun-God. Now the Yule log, or the Christmas Tree is Nimrod redivivus, the slain God come to life again, but this time as Ninos.
We see two key figures in the origin of Christmas are Nimrod, a great grandson of Utnapishtim,(Noah) and his mother and wife, Semiramis, also known as Ishtar and Isis. Nimrod, known in Egypt as Osiris, was the founder of the first world empire at Babel, later known as Babylon, Genesis: (10: 8-12, 11: 1-9). From ancient sources such as the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and records unearthed by archeologists from long-ruined Mesopotamian and Egyptian cities, scholars have been able to reconstruct subsequent events.
As we have shown, after Nimrod's death (c. 2167 BC), Semiramis promoted the belief that he was a god. She claimed that she saw a full-grown evergreen tree spring out of the roots of a dead tree stump, symbolizing the springing forth of new life for Nimrod. She said, “On the anniversary of his birth, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts under it.
A few years after Nimrod’s death, Semiramis bore a son, Ninos who sometimes called Gilgamesh. She declared that she had been visited by the spirit of Nimrod, who left her pregnant with the boy. “Nin” child or Ninos, which she maintained was Nimrod reincarnated. With a father, mother, and son deified, a trinity was formed in Assyria.
Semiramis and Ninos were worshipped as "Madonna and child" in ancient Assyria. As the generations passed, they were worshipped under other names in different countries and languages, as mentioned. Many of these are recognizable to this day: Fortuna and Jupiter in Rome; Aphrodite and Adonis in Greece; and Ashtoreth/Astarte and Molech/Baal in Canaan.
Writers of the Old Testament have left us further proof that Pre-Christian Assyrians did decorate an evergreen in honor and memory of the birth of their Messiah, as written in Jeremiah 10:2-4:
“Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”
In ancient Assyria, the night before the birth of the messiah was known as Mother-Night. Twelve candles were ordered by Queen Shamiram to be lit on the evergreen tree, representing the 12 holy and celebratory days of the birth of her son and the reincarnation of the sun, as he was called “the light of the world.” The day of the birth, December 25th, was known as Lady-Day, as Shamiram gives birth to the “savior of the world” and becomes the Mother-Goddess. For 12 days, the ancient Assyrians celebrated the birth of their sun and the son of the virgin mother-goddess, and gifts were exchanged among the citizens. A goose was served on Lady-Day, representing the “child” and Nimrod/Ninos’ favorite food, and nur-cakes, meaning birth-cakes (sometimes called Yule-cakes) were also served. These traditions were carried into Europe, and to this day, the Scotts call these nur cakes.
Roman Christianity was based entirely on the Assyrian system, and the Assyrian traditions of sun/son worship were implemented, changing the Assyrian Messiah’s name to Jesus Christ. All the Assyrian traditions of Lady-Night and Lady-Day, were incorporated into Christianity, including the present Christmas traditions, and can be found at the Vatican.
At approximately the same time as the Assyrians, the Hindus celebrate the Winter Solstice as the day Surya, or “sun” is born, and Surya is Ashur whose light lit the world and inspired the Assyrians to build the earth, which is why the Hindus to this day call the Assyrians Asurayas, “The Builders.” The Zoroastrians, called in Mesopotamia Zardasht, (meaning the seed of the woman) still celebrate the birth of light or “fire” in Iran, and this tradition is traced back to the times when they celebrated the birth of Ninos, the seed of Queen Shamiram. The Muslims celebrate the Winter Solstice as Eid Al Athha, (Ath ha) meaning “light” or sun. The Jews celebrate Hannukha, which is literally the festival of “light” or sun, and Shamash is the candle that lights all the other Hannuka candles. In Rome, the Romans celebrated the Winter Solstice as Saturnalia, (the birth of the Sun/Son) and the tradition goes all the way back to the ancient Assyrian celebration of the birth of the sun/son and the messiah, Ninos. These traditions of the religions of the world all have their roots in the Assyrian religious belief system of Ashurism.
Bibliography
Note: All the books listed in Bibliography are according to their original publication date, to provide Assyrians with a glimpse of who is the custodian of our history, culture, and religion.
Adam’s Roman Antiquities London, 1835 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Apocalypse, Original Interpretation London, 1857 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Asiatic Journal London, 1816 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Augustine’s City of God, with Lud Vive’s Comment London, 1620 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Barker’s Hebrew Lexicon London, 1811 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Begg’s Handbook of Popery Edinburgh, 1856 | Related: WEB | PDF | EPUB
Berosus Leipzig, 1825 | Related: WEB | PDF | EPUB
Bilne’s British Reformers London, S. D. | Related: WEB | PDF | EPUB
Blakeney’s Popery in its Social Aspect Edinburgh, S. D. | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Bryant’s Mythology London, 1807 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Bunsen’s Egypt London, 1848 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Chesney’s Euphrates Expedition London, 1850
Coleman’s Hindu Mythology London 1832 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Corey’s Fragments London, 1732 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Crabb’s Mythology London, 1854
Didron’s Christian Iconography London, 1851 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Dryden’s Virgil London, 1709 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Dymock’s Classical Dictionary London, 1833
Fuss’ Roman Antiquities Oxford, 1840 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Gibbons’ Decline and Fall Dublin, 1781 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Gieseler’s Ecclesiastical History Edinburgh, 1846 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Guizot’s European Civilization London, 1846 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Knox’s History of Reformation Edinburgh, 1846-48 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains London, 1846-1849 | WEB | PDF | EPUB | Volume II
Layard’s Babylon and Nineveh London, 1853 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Mallet’s Northern Antiquities London, 1770 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Milton’s Paradise Lost London, 1695 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Niehbuhrs Roman History London, 1855 | Related: WEB | PDF | EPUB
Ouvaroff’s Eleusinian Mysteries London, 1817 | Related: WEB | PDF | EPUB
Pococke’s India in Greece London, 1852 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Potter’s Greek Antiquities Oxford, 1697 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Quarterly Journal of Prophecy London, 1852 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
Russel’s Egypt Edinburgh, 1831 | Related: WEB | PDF | EPUB
Stanley’s History of Philosophy London, 1687 | WEB | PDF | EPUB
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www.atour.com/education/20070108a.html
A Rome, le poète Ovide confirme que la déesse médiatrice mère d'Adonis avait été changée en arbre pour enfanter son fils (Ovide, les métamorphoses, X,V). Ce fils, Homme-branche, était symbolisé par une bûche. En étant mis dans le feu, l'Homme-branche renaissait le lendemain comme arbre de vie.
On retrouve cette bûche, tronc sans branche, entourée par le dieu-serpent Esculape qui rend la vie. Ce serpent est le symbole de la médecine. Il est représenté autour de la bûche et il fait naître un palmier, symbole de victoire du dieu-soleil invaincu.
serpentNemrod, dans le culte babylonien, était le dieu mis à mort et rendu de nouveau à la vie. Sombre parodie de la promesse divine annoncée par les homme de Dieu dans la Bible. L'arbre de Noël, c'est "Nemrod redivivus".
Dans les pays anglo-saxons, on embrasse la branche de gui, selon une tradition laissée par les druides. C'est une représentation héritée de l'homme-branche babylonien. Signe de réconciliation entre Dieu et les hommes, le baiser est présent dans le verset biblique du Psaume 85:10-11. Le propre du culte babylonien était de corrompre la pensée de Dieu que les auteurs bibliques annonçaient.
Achutha ashrama situated near the feet of ranamandala,Adoni(mandal), Kurnool(Dist.,), Andhra Pradesh(state), India.
Raghu Munji
Tipu Sultan ( Urdu:ٹیپو سلطان, Kannada : ಟಿಪ್ಪು ಸುಲ್ತಾನ್ ) (20 November 1750 – 4 May 1799), (Sultan Fateh Ali Khan Shahab) also known as the Tiger of Mysore, and Tipu Sahib, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He was the eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali of Mysore. Tipu introduced a number of administrative innovations during his rule, including his coinage, a new Mauludi lunisolar calendar, and a new land revenue system which initiated the growth of Mysore silk industry. Tipu expanded the iron-cased Mysorean rockets and wrote the military manual Fathul Mujahidin, considered a pioneer in the use of rocket artillery. He deployed the rockets against advances of British forces and their allies in their 1792 and 1799 Siege of Srirangapatna.
Tipu engaged in expansionist attacks against his neighbours. He remained an implacable enemy of the British East India Company, bringing them into renewed conflict with his attack on British-allied Travancore in 1789. In the Third Anglo-Mysore War, Tipu was forced into the humiliating Treaty of Seringapatam, losing a number of previously conquered territories, including Malabar and Mangalore. He sent emissaries to foreign states, including the Ottoman Turkey, Afghanistan, and France, in an attempt to rally opposition to the British. In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the forces of the British East India Company, supported by the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad, defeated Tipu and he was killed on 4 May 1799 while defending his fort of Srirangapatna. Tipu Sultan's image in India is complicated where he is regarded both as a secular ruler who fought against British colonialism as well as an anti-Hindu tyrant.
EARLY YEARS OF TIPU SULTAN
CHILDHOOD
Tipu Sultan was born on 20 November 1750 (Friday, 20th Dhu al-Hijjah, 1163 AH) at Devanahalli, in present-day Bengaluru Rural district, about 33 km north of Bengaluru city. He was named "Tipu Sultan" after the saint Tipu Mastan Aulia of Arcot. Tipu was also called "Fath Ali" after his grandfather Fatah Muhammad. Tipu was born at Devanhalli, the son of Haidar Ali. Himself illiterate, Haidar was very particular in giving his eldest son a prince's education and a very early exposure to military and political affairs. From the age of 17 Tipu was given independent charge of important diplomatic and military missions. He was his father's right arm in the wars from which Haidar emerged as the most powerful ruler of southern India.
Tipu's father, Hyder Ali, was a military officer in service to the Kingdom of Mysore; he rapidly rose in power, and became the de facto ruler of Mysore in 1761.
SECOND ANGLO-MYSORE WAR
In 1779, the British captured the French-controlled port of Mahé, which Tipu had placed under his protection, providing some troops for its defence. In response, Hyder launched an invasion of the Carnatic, with the aim of driving the British out of Madras.[13] During this campaign in September 1780, Tipu Sultan was dispatched by Hyder Ali with 10,000 men and 18 guns to intercept Colonel Baillie who was on his way to join Sir Hector Munro. In the Battle of Pollilur, Tipu decisively defeated Baillie. Out of 360 Europeans, about 200 were captured alive, and the sepoys, who were about 3800 men, suffered very high casualties. Munro was moving south with a separate force to join Baillie, but on hearing the news of the defeat he was forced to retreat to Madras, abandoning his artillery in a water tank at Kanchipuram.
Tipu Sultan defeated Colonel Braithwaite at Annagudi near Tanjore on 18 February 1782. Braithwaite's forces, consisting of 100 Europeans, 300 cavalry, 1400 sepoys and 10 field pieces, was the standard size of the colonial armies. Tipu Sultan seized all the guns and took the entire detachment prisoner. In December 1781 Tipu Sultan successfully seized Chittur from the British. Tipu Sultan had thus gained sufficient military experience by the time Hyder Ali died on Friday, 6 December 1782 – some historians put it at 2 or 3 days later or before, (Hijri date being 1 Muharram, 1197 as per some records in Persian – there may be a difference of 1 to 3 days due to the Lunar Calendar). Tipu Sultan realised that the British were a new kind of threat in India. He became the ruler of Mysore on Sunday, 22 December 1782 (The inscriptions in some of Tipu's regalia showing it as 20 Muharram, 1197 Hijri – Sunday), in a simple coronation ceremony. He then worked to check the advances of the British by making alliances with the Marathas and the Mughals.
The Second Mysore War came to an end with the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore. It was the last occasion when an Indian king dictated terms to the British, and the treaty is a prestigious document in the history of India.
RULER OF THE MYSORE STATE
Muhammad Falak Ali taught Tipu how to fight. While leading a predominantly Hindu country, Tipu remained strong in his Muslim faith, going daily to say his prayers and paying special attention to mosques in the area.
During his rule, he completed the project of Lal Bagh started by his father Hyder Ali, and built roads, public buildings, and ports in his kingdom. His dominion extended throughout North Bangalore including the Nandi Hills and Chickballapur. His trade extended to countries such as Sri Lanka, Oman, Durrani Afghanistan, France, Ottoman Turkey and Iran. Under his leadership, the Mysore army proved to be a school of military science to Indian princes. The serious blows that Tipu Sultan inflicted on the British in the First and Second Mysore Wars affected their reputation as an invincible power.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, in his Tipu Sultan Shaheed Memorial Lecture in Bangalore (30 November 1991), called Tipu Sultan the innovator of the world's first war rocket. Two of these rockets, captured by the British at Srirangapatna, are displayed in the Royal Artillery Museum in London. According to historian Dr Dulari Qureshi Tipu Sultan was a fierce warrior king and was so quick in his movement that it seemed to the enemy that he was fighting on many fronts at the same time. Tipu managed to subdue all the petty kingdoms in the south. He defeated the Nizams and was also one of the few Indian rulers to have defeated British armies. He is said to have started a new coinage, calendar, and a new system of weights and measures mainly based on the methods introduced by French technicians. He was well versed in Kannada, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, English and French. Tipu was supposed to become a Sufi, but his father Hyder Ali insisted he become a capable soldier and leader.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Both Hyder Ali ismaael and Tipu Sultan were independent rulers of Mysore, but claimed some degree of loyalty to the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. Both of them are known to have maintained correspondence with the Mughal emperor. Unlike the Nawab of Carnatic, neither owed any allegiance to the Nizam of Hyderabad and often instead chose direct contact and relations with the Mughal emperor.
In the year 1787, Tipu Sultan sent an embassy to the Ottoman capital Istanbul, to the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I requesting urgent assistance against the British East India Company and had proposed an offensive and defensive consortium. Tipu Sultan requested the Ottoman Sultan to send him troops and military experts. Furthermore, Tipu Sultan also requested permission from the Ottomans to contribute to the maintenance of the Islamic shrines in Mecca, Medina, Najaf and Karbala. However, the Ottomans were themselves at crisis and still recuperating from the devastating Austro-Ottoman War and a new conflict with the Russian Empire had begun, for which Ottoman Turkey needed British alliance to keep off the Russians, hence it could not risk being hostile to the British in the Indian theatre. Due to the Ottoman-inability to organise a fleet in the Indian Ocean, Tipu Sultan's ambassadors returned home only with gifts from their Ottoman allies, this event caused his defeat and loss of much territory by the year 1792. Nevertheless, Tipu Sultan's correspondence with the Ottoman Turkish Empire and particularly it's new Sultan Selim III continued till his final battle in the year 1799.
Tipu sought support from the French, who had been his traditional allies, aimed at driving his main rivals, the British East India Company, out of the subcontinent. But back in France, the French revolution had broken out, the ruling Bourbon family was executed and the country was in chaos, hence the French did not support him. Napoleon, while still not the Emperor of France, sought an alliance with Tipu Sultan. Napoleon came as far as conquering Egypt in an attempt to link with Tipu Sultan against the British, their common enemy. In February 1798, Napoleon wrote a letter to Tipu Sultan appreciating his efforts of resisting the British annexation and plans, but this letter never reached Tipu and was seized by a British spy in Muscat. The idea of a possible Tipu-Napoleon alliance alarmed the British Governor General Sir Richard Wellesley (also known as Lord Wellesley) so much that he immediately started large scale preparations for a final battle against Tipu Sultan.
Both Tipu Sultan and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte were defeated by the same person. In the Final siege and fall of Srirangapatna in 1799, General Arthur Wellesley led the British army into the City after the fall of Tipu Sultan. Arthur was the younger brother of Richard Wellesley, and was one of the British Generals in the Fourth Mysore War. Several years later in Europe, the same Arthur Wellesley, now the Duke of Wellington, led the armies of the Seventh Coalition and defeated the Imperial French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Like his father before him, Tipu Sultan maintained many embassies and made several contacts with Mohammad Ali Khan, ruler of the Zand Dynasty in Persia. Tipu Sultan also maintained correspondence with Hamad bin Said, the ruler of the Sultanate of Oman.
Regional interests and clever British diplomacy left Tipu with more enemies and betrayers, but no allies when he needed them the most – the final showdown with the British in the Fourth Mysore War.
WAR AGAINST THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY
The Maratha Empire, under its new Peshwa Madhavrao I, regained most of Indian subcontinent, twice defeating Tipu's father, who was forced to accept Maratha Empire as the supreme power in 1764 and then in 1767. In 1767 Maratha Peshwa Madhavrao defeated both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan and entered Srirangapatna, the capital of Mysore. Hyder Ali accepted the authority of Madhavrao who gave him the title of Nawab of Mysore. However Tipu Sultan wanted to escape from the treaty of Marathas and therefore tried to take some Maratha forts in southern India. This brought Tipu in direct conflict with the Marathas, who sent an army towards Mysore under leadership of General Nana Phadnavis. The Marathas took many forts of Tipu Sultan in the Mysore region Badami, Kittur, and Gajendragad in June 1786. By the victory in this war, the border of the Maratha territory was extended to the Tungabhadra river. This forced Tipu to open negotiations with the Maratha leadership. He sent two of his agents to the Maratha capital of Pune. The deal that was finalised resulted in the Marathas recovering their territories which had been invaded by Mysore. Furthermore, the Nizam of Hyderabad received Adoni and Mysore was obligated to pay 4.8 million rupees as a war cost to the Marathas, and an annual tribute of 1.2 million rupees; in return the Marathas recognised the rule of Tipu in the Mysore region.
The Malabar Invasion of Sultanate of Mysore (1766–1790)
In 1766, when Tipu Sultan was just 15 years old, he got the chance to apply his military training in battle for the first time, when he accompanied his father on an invasion of Malabar. After the incident- Siege of Tellicherry in Thalassery in North Malabar, Hyder Ali started losing his territories in Malabar. Tipu came from Mysore to reinstate the authority over Malabar. After the Battle of the Nedumkotta (1789), due to the monsoon flood, the stiff resistance of the Travancore forces and news about the attack of British in Srirangapatnam he went back.
THIRD ANGLO-MYSORE-WAR
In 1789, Tipu Sultan disputed the acquisition by Dharma Raja of Travancore of two Dutch-held fortresses in Cochin. In December 1789 he massed troops at Coimbatore, and on 28 December made an attack on the lines of Travancore, knowing that Travancore was (according to the Treaty of Mangalore) an ally of the British East India Company. On account of the staunch resistance by the Travancore army, Tipu was unable to break through the Tranvancore lines and the Maharajah of Travancore appealed to the East India Company for help. In response, Lord Cornwallis mobilised company and British military forces, and formed alliances with the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad to oppose Tipu. In 1790 the company forces advanced, taking control of much of the Coimbatore district. Tipu counterattacked, regaining much of the territory, although the British continued to hold Coimbatore itself. He then descended into the Carnatic, eventually reaching Pondicherry, where he attempted without success to draw the French into the conflict.In 1791 his opponents advanced on all fronts, with the main British force under Cornwallis taking Bangalore and threatening Srirangapatna. Tipu harassed the British supply and communication and embarked on a "scorched earth" policy of denying local resources to the invaders. In this last effort he was successful, as the lack of provisions forced Cornwallis to withdraw to Bangalore rather than attempt a siege of Srirangapatna. Following the withdrawal, Tipu sent forces to Coimbatore, which they retook after a lengthy siege.
The 1792 campaign was a failure for Tipu. The allied army was well-supplied, and Tipu was unable to prevent the junction of forces from Bangalore and Bombay before Srirangapatna. After about two weeks of siege, Tipu opened negotiations for terms of surrender. In the ensuing treaty, he was forced to cede half his territories to the allies, and deliver two of his sons as hostages until he paid in full three crores and thirty lakhs rupees fixed as war indemnity to the British for the campaign against him. He paid the amount in two instalments and got back his sons from Madras.
NAPOLEON´S ATTEMPT AT A JUNCTION
In 1794, with the support of French Republican officers, Tipu helped found the Jacobin Club of Mysore for 'framing laws comfortable with the laws of the Republic' He planted a Liberty Tree and declared himself Citizen Tipoo.
One of the motivations of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt was to establish a junction with India against the British. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with Tippoo Sahib. Napoleon assured to the French Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions." According to a 13 February 1798 report by Talleyrand: "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English." Napoleon was unsuccessful in this strategy, losing the Siege of Acre in 1799, and at the Battle of Abukir in 1801.
“Although I never supposed that he (Napoleon) possessed, allowing for some difference of education, the liberality of conduct and political views which were sometimes exhibited by old Hyder Ali, yet I did think he might have shown the same resolved and dogged spirit of resolution which induced Tipu Sahib to die manfully upon the breach of his capital city with his sabre clenched in his hand.”
— Sir Walter Scott, commenting on the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814
DEATH
FOURTH ANGLO-MYSORE WAR
After Horatio Nelson had defeated François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt in 1798, three armies, one from Bombay, and two British (one of which included Arthur Wellesley), marched into Mysore in 1799 and besieged the capital Srirangapatna in the Fourth Mysore War.
There were over 26,000 soldiers of the British East India Company comprising about 4000 Europeans and the rest Indians. A column was supplied by the Nizam of Hyderabad consisting of ten battalions and over 16,000 cavalry, and many soldiers were sent by the Marathas. Thus the soldiers in the British force numbered over 50,000 soldiers whereas Tipu Sultan had only about 30,000 soldiers. The British broke through the city walls, French Military advisers advised Tipu Sultan to escape from secret passages and live to fight another day but to their astonishment Tipu replied "One day of life as a Tiger is far better than thousand years of living as a Sheep". Tipu Sultan died defending his capital on 4 May. When the fallen Tipu was identified, Wellesley felt his pulse and confirmed that he was dead. Next to him, underneath his palankeen, was one of his most confidential servants, Rajah Cawn. Rajah was able to identify Tipu for the soldiers. Tipu Sultan was killed at the Hoally (Diddy) Gateway, which was located 270 m from the N.E. Angle of the Srirangapatna Fort. Tipu was buried the next afternoon, at the Gumaz, next to the grave of his father. In the midst of his burial, a great storm struck, with massive winds and rains. As Lieutenant Richard Bayly of the British 12th regiment wrote,
I have experienced hurricanes, typhoons, and gales of wind at sea, but never in the whole course of my existence had I seen anything comparable to this desolating visitation.Immediately after the death of Tipu Sultan many members of the British East India Company believed that Umdat Ul-Umra, the Nawab of Carnatic, secretly provided assistance to Tipu Sultan during the war and immediately sought his deposition after the year 1799.
LEADERSHIP, POLICY AND INNOVATIONS
Tipu introduced a new calendar, new coinage, and seven new government departments, during his reign, and made military innovations in the use of rocketry.
MYSOREAN ROCKETS
Tipu Sultan's father had expanded on Mysore's use of rocketry, making critical innovations in the rockets themselves and the military logistics of their use. He deployed as many as 1,200 specialised troops in his army to operate rocket launchers. These men were skilled in operating the weapons and were trained to launch their rockets at an angle calculated from the diameter of the cylinder and the distance to the target. The rockets had blades mounted on them, and could wreak significant damage when fired en masse against a large army. Tipu greatly expanded the use of rockets after Hyder's death, deploying as many as 5,000 rocketeers at a time. The rockets deployed by Tipu during the Battle of Pollilur were much more advanced than those the British East India Company had previously seen, chiefly because of the use of iron tubes for holding the propellant; this enabled higher thrust and longer range for the missiles (up to 2 km range).
British accounts describe the use of the rockets during the third and fourth wars. During the climactic battle at Srirangapatna in 1799, British shells struck a magazine containing rockets, causing it to explode and send a towering cloud of black smoke with cascades of exploding white light rising up from the battlements. After Tipu's defeat in the fourth war the British captured a number of the Mysorean rockets. These became influential in British rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, which was soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars.
RELIGIOUS POLICY
As a Muslim ruler in a largely Hindu domain, Tipu Sultan faced problems in establishing the legitimacy of his rule, and in reconciling his desire to be seen as a devout Islamic ruler with the need to be pragmatic to avoid antagonising the majority of his subjects. His religious legacy has become a source of considerable controversy in the subcontinent. Some groups proclaim him a great warrior for the faith or Ghazi, while others revile him as a bigot who massacred Hindus.
In 1780, he declared himself to be the Badshah or Emperor of Mysore, and struck coinage in his own name without reference to the reigning Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. H. D. Sharma writes that, in his correspondence with other Islamic rulers such as Zaman Shah of the Afghan Durrani Empire, Tipu Sultan used this title and declared that he intended to establish an Islamic empire in the entire country, along the lines of the Mughal Empire, which was at its decline during the period in question. He even invited Zaman Shah to invade India to help achieve this mission. His alliance with the French was supposedly aimed at achieving this goal by driving his main rivals, the British, out of the subcontinent. During the early period of Tipu Sultan's reign in particular, he appears to have been as strict as his father against any non-Muslim accused of collaboration with the British East India Company or the Maratha.
ATTITUDE TOWARDS HINDUS
CNVERSIONS OF HINDUS OUTSIDE MYSORE TO ISLAM
KODAGU (COORG)
The battles between Kodavas and Tippu Sultan is one of the most bitter rivalries in South India. There were repeated attempts to capture Kodagu by the sultan and his father Hyder Ali before him. The primary reason for sultan's interest in Kodagu because annexing Kodagu would provide access to Mangalore port. The Kodavas knew their lands and mountains very well which made them excellent at guerrilla warfare. Kodavas were outnumbered 3 to 1 in most of Tippu's attempts to annex Kodagu but they managed to beat back Tippu most of the times by drawing his army towards hilly regions of their land. On few occasions Tippu's army managed to reach Madikeri(Capital of Kodagu) but the Kodavas always ambushed the contingent left behind by Tippu. Kodavas refusal to bow to the sultan was primarily because throughout their history they enjoyed independence, though there were Rajahs ruling over them, governance of the land mainly rested with Kodavas. After capturing Kodagu on another occasion, Tippu proclaimed, "If you ever dare to ambush my men again, I will honor everyone of you with Islam", undeterred, the resilient Kodavas ambushed his men yet again and drove them back to Mysore. By now Tippu realized conventional warfare would never yield him Kodagu. He devised a plan to annex Kodagu by offering his friendship. His offer of friendship was welcomed by Kodavas as the battles with the Sultan over the years had cost them dearly. When Kodavas welcomed Sultan to their land in the name of friendship, the Sultan and his men attacked them and took thousands as prisoners. Tipu got Runmust Khan, the Nawab of Kurnool, to launch a surprise attack upon the Kodava Hindus who were besieged by the invading Muslim army. 500 were killed and over 40,000 Kodavas fled to the woods and concealed themselves in the mountains. Thousands of Kodavas were seized along with the Raja and held captive at Seringapatam. Aguably, they were thought to be subjected to forcible conversions to Islam, death, and torture.
In Seringapatam, the young men were all forcibly circumcised and incorporated into the Ahmedy Corps, and were formed into eight Risalas or regiments. The actual number of Kodavas that were captured in the operation is unclear. The British administrator Mark Wilks gives it as 70,000, Historian Lewis Rice arrives at the figure of 85,000, while Mir Kirmani's score for the Coorg campaign is 80,000 men, women and child prisoners.
Mohibbul Hasan, Prof. Sheikh Ali, and other historians cast great doubt on the scale of the deportations and forced conversions in Coorg in particular. Hassan says that it is difficult to estimate the real number of Coorgs captured by Tipu.
MALABAR
NORTH MALABAR
In 1788, Tipu entered into Malabar to quell a rebellion. Nairs were surrounded with offers of death or circumcision. Chirakkal's Nair Raja who was received with distinctions for surrendering voluntarily was later hanged. Tipu then divided Malabar into districts, with three officers in each district given the task of numbering productive trees, collecting revenue and giving religious orders to Nairs.
INSCRIPTIONS
On the handle of the sword presented by Tipu to Marquess Wellesley was the following inscription:
"My victorious sabre is lightning for the destruction of the unbelievers. Ali, the Emir of the Faithful, is victorious for my advantage, and moreover, he destroyed the wicked race who were unbelievers. Praise be to him (God), who is the Lord of the Worlds! Thou art our Lord, support us against the people who are unbelievers. He to whom the Lord giveth victory prevails over all (mankind). Oh Lord, make him victorious, who promoteth the faith of Muhammad. Confound him, who refuseth the faith of Muhammad; and withhold us from those who are so inclined from the true faith. The Lord is predominant over his own works. Victory and conquest are from the Almighty. Bring happy tidings, Oh Muhammad, to the faithful; for God is the kind protector and is the most merciful of the merciful. If God assists thee, thou will prosper. May the Lord God assist thee, Oh Muhammad, with a mighty great victory."
During a search of his palace in 1795, some gold medals were found in the palace, on which the following was inscribed on one side in Persian: "Of God the bestower of blessings", and the other: "victory and conquest are from the Almighty". These were carved in commemoration of a victory after the war of 1780. The following is a translation of an inscription on the stone found at Seringapatam, which was situated in a conspicuous place in the fort:
"Oh Almighty God! dispose the whole body of infidels! Scatter their tribe, cause their feet to stagger! Overthrow their councils, change their state, destroy their very root! Cause death to be near them, cut off from them the means of sustenance! Shorten their days! Be their bodies the constant object of their cares (i.e., infest them with diseases), deprive their eyes of sight, make black their faces (i.e., bring shame)."
TEMPLES AND OFFICERS IN MYSORE
Tipu Sultan's treasurer was Krishna Rao, Shamaiya Iyengar was his Minister of Post and Police, his brother Ranga Iyengar was also an officer, and Purnaiya held the very important post of "Mir Asaf". Moolchand and Sujan Rai were his chief agents at the Mughal court, and his chief "Peshkar", Suba Rao, was also a Hindu. Editor of Mysore Gazettes Srikantaiah has listed 156 temples to which Tipu regularly paid annual grants. There is such evidence as grant deeds, and correspondence between his court and temples, and his having donated jewellery and deeded land grants to several temples, which some claim he was compelled to do to make alliances with Hindu rulers. Between 1782 and 1799 Tipu Sultan issued 34 "Sanads" (deeds) of endowment to temples in his domain, while also presenting many of them with gifts of silver and gold plate. The Srikanteswara Temple in Nanjangud still possesses a jewelled cup presented by the Sultan. He also gave a greenish linga; to Ranganatha temple at Srirangapatna he donated seven silver cups and a silver camphor burner. This temple was hardly a stone's throw from his palace from where he would listen with equal respect to the ringing of temple bells and the muezzin's call from the mosque; to the Lakshmikanta Temple at Kalale he gifted four cups, a plate and Spitoon in silver.
SRINGERI INCIDENT
In 1791, Maratha army raided the temple and matha of Sringeri Shankaracharya, killing and wounding many, and plundering the monastery of all its valuable possessions. The incumbent Shankaracharya petitioned Tipu Sultan for help. A bunch of about 30 letters written in Kannada, which were exchanged between Tipu Sultan's court and the Sringeri Shankaracharya were discovered in 1916 by the Director of Archaeology in Mysore. Tipu Sultan expressed his indignation and grief at the news of the raid:
"People who have sinned against such a holy place are sure to suffer the consequences of their misdeeds at no distant date in this Kali age in accordance with the verse: "Hasadbhih kriyate karma rudadbhir-anubhuyate" (People do [evil] deeds smilingly but suffer the consequences crying)."
He immediately ordered the Asaf of Bednur to supply the Swami with 200 rahatis (fanams) in cash and other gifts and articles. Tipu Sultan's interest in the Sringeri temple continued for many years, and he was still writing to the Swami in the 1790s CE.
CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE
In light of this and other events, B.A. Saletare has described Tipu Sultan as a defender of the Hindu dharma, who also patronised other temples including one at Melkote, for which he issued a Kannada decree that the Shrivaishnava invocatory verses there should be recited in the traditional form. The temple at Melkote still has gold and silver vessels with inscriptions indicating that they were presented by the Sultan. Tipu Sultan also presented four silver cups to the Lakshmikanta Temple at Kalale. Tipu Sultan does seem to have repossessed unauthorised grants of land made to Brahmins and temples, but those which had proper sanads were not. It was a normal practice for any ruler, Muslim or Hindu, on his accession or on the conquest of new territory. The portrayal of Tipu Sultan as a secular leader is disputed, and some sources, largely left-leaning scholars from the 20th century, suggest that he in fact often embraced religious pluralism.
Historian C. Hayavadana Rao wrote about Tipu in his encyclopaedic court history of Mysore. He asserted that Tipu's "religious fanaticism and the excesses committed in the name of religion, both in Mysore and in the provinces, stand condemned for all time. His bigotry, indeed, was so great that it precluded all ideas of toleration". He further asserts that the acts of Tipu that were constructive towards Hindus were largely political and ostentatious rather than an indication of genuine tolerance.
ATTITUDE TOWARDS CHRISTIANS
Tipu is regarded to be anti-Christian by some historians. The captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam, which began on 24 February 1784 and ended on 4 May 1799, remains the most disconsolate memory in their history.
The Barcoor Manuscript reports him as having said: "All Musalmans should unite together, and considering the annihilation of infidels as a sacred duty, labour to the utmost of their power, to accomplish that subject." Soon after the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, Tipu gained control of Canara. He issued orders to seize the Christians in Canara, confiscate their estates, and deport them to Seringapatam, the capital of his empire, through the Jamalabad fort route. However, there were no priests among the captives. Together with Fr. Miranda, all the 21 arrested priests were issued orders of expulsion to Goa, fined Rupees 200,000, and threatened death by hanging if they ever returned.
Tipu ordered the destruction of 27 Catholic churches, all beautifully carved with statues depicting various saints. Among them included the Church of Nossa Senhora de Rosario Milagres at Mangalore, Fr Miranda's Seminary at Monte Mariano, Church of Jesu Marie Jose at Omzoor, Chapel at Bolar, Church of Merces at Ullal, Imaculata Conceicão at Mulki, San Jose at Perar, Nossa Senhora dos Remedios at Kirem, Sao Lawrence at Karkal, Rosario at Barkur, Immaculata Conceição at Baidnur. All were razed to the ground, with the exception of The Church of Holy Cross at Hospet, owing to the friendly offices of the Chauta Raja of Moodbidri.
According to Thomas Munro, a Scottish soldier and the first collector of Canara, around 60,000 people, nearly 92 percent of the entire Mangalorean Catholic community, were captured; only 7,000 escaped. Francis Buchanan gives the numbers as 70,000 captured, from a population of 80,000, with 10,000 escaping. They were forced to climb nearly 1,200 m through the jungles of the Western Ghat mountain ranges. It was 340 km from Mangalore to Seringapatam, and the journey took six weeks. According to British Government records, 20,000 of them died on the march to Seringapatam. According to James Scurry, a British officer, who was held captive along with Mangalorean Catholics, 30,000 of them were forcibly converted to Islam. The young women and girls were forcibly made wives of the Muslims living there. The young men who offered resistance were disfigured by cutting their noses, upper lips, and ears. According to Mr. Silva of Gangolim, a survivor of the captivity, if a person who had escaped from Seringapatam was found, the punishment under the orders of Tipu was the cutting off of the ears, nose, the feet and one hand. Gazetteer of South India describes Tipu Sultan forcibly circumcising 30,000 West Coast Christians and deporting them to Mysore
Tipu's persecution of Christians even extended to captured British soldiers. For instance, there were a significant number of forced conversions of British captives between 1780 and 1784. Following their disastrous defeat at the 1780 Battle of Pollilur, 7,000 British men along with an unknown number of women were held captive by Tipu in the fortress of Seringapatnam. Of these, over 300 were circumcised and given Muslim names and clothes and several British regimental drummer boys were made to wear ghagra cholis and entertain the court as nautch girls or dancing girls. After the 10-year-long captivity ended, James Scurry, one of those prisoners, recounted that he had forgotten how to sit in a chair and use a knife and fork. His English was broken and stilted, having lost all his vernacular idiom. His skin had darkened to the swarthy complexion of negroes, and moreover, he had developed an aversion to wearing European clothes.
During the surrender of the Mangalore fort which was delivered in an armistice by the British and their subsequent withdrawal, all the Mestizos and remaining non-British foreigners were killed, together with 5,600 Mangalorean Catholics. Those condemned by Tipu Sultan for treachery were hanged instantly, the gibbets being weighed down by the number of bodies they carried. The Netravati River was so putrid with the stench of dying bodies, that the local residents were forced to leave their riverside homes.
The Archbishop of Goa wrote in 1800, "It is notoriously known in all Asia and all other parts of the globe of the oppression and sufferings experienced by the Christians in the Dominion of the King of Kanara, during the usurpation of that country by Tipu Sultan from an implacable hatred he had against them who professed Christianity."
Tipu Sultan's invasion of the Malabar had an adverse impact on the Syrian Malabar Nasrani community of the Malabar coast. Many churches in the Malabar and Cochin were damaged. The old Syrian Nasrani seminary at Angamaly which had been the center of Catholic religious education for several centuries was razed to the ground by Tipu's soldiers. A lot of centuries old religious manuscripts were lost forever. The church was later relocated to Kottayam where it still exists to this date. The Mor Sabor church at Akaparambu and the Martha Mariam Church attached to the seminary were destroyed as well. Tipu's army set fire to the church at Palayoor and attacked the Ollur Church in 1790. Furthernmore, the Arthat church and the Ambazhakkad seminary was also destroyed. Over the course of this invasion, many Syrian Malabar Nasrani were killed or forcibly converted to Islam. Most of the coconut, arecanut, pepper and cashew plantations held by the Syrian Malabar farmers were also indiscriminately destroyed by the invading army. As a result, when Tipu's army invaded Guruvayur and adjacent areas, the Syrian Christian community fled Calicut and small towns like Arthat to new centres like Kunnamkulam, Chalakudi, Ennakadu, Cheppadu, Kannankode, Mavelikkara, etc. where there were already Christians. They were given refuge by Sakthan Tamburan, the ruler of Cochin and Karthika Thirunal, the ruler of Travancore, who gave them lands, plantations and encouraged their businesses. Colonel Macqulay, the British resident of Travancore also helped them.
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS
According to historian Professor Sheikh Ali, Tipu "took his stand on the bedrock of humanity, regarding all his subjects as equal citizen to live in peace, harmony and concord." However, during the storming of Srirangapatna by the British in 1799, thirteen murdered British prisoners were discovered, killed by either having their necks broken or nails driven into their skulls.
Tipu's palace in Seringapatam had a strictly guarded Zenana quarters for women. Many of the women in his Hareem were daughters of native princes and Brahmins, who had been abducted in infancy and brought up Muslim. In the same palace, the legitimate Wadiyar king Chamaraja Wodeyar IX was held captive. The prince having no children had adopted his relative, who was also imprisoned by the Sultan. The palaces and temples raised by the earlier Wadiyar kings were also pulled down by Tipu, on the pretext of strengthening the fortress.
LEGACY
Tipu Sultan was one of the first Indian kings to be martyred on the battlefield while defending his Kingdom against the Colonial British. In India, While many historians generally take a favourable view of his reign, others portray him as a Muslim fanatic. Tipu has been officially recognized by the Government of India as a freedom fighter. The 1990 Television Series The Sword of Tipu Sultan directed by Sanjay Khan was based on the Life and events of Tipu Sultan.
Tipu Sultan is held in high esteem in Pakistan which considers Tipu Sultan as a hero of the Indian independence movement. The country has honoured him by naming Pakistan Navy ship PNS Tippu Sultan after Tipu Sultan. Pakistan television aired a drama on Tipu Sultan directed by Qasim Jalali.
Tipu had several wives. Tipu Sultan's family was sent to Calcutta by the British. A descendent of one of Tipu Sultan's uncles Noor Inayat Khan was a British Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War, murdered in the German Dachau concentration camp in 1944.
SWORD AND TIGER
Tipu Sultan had lost his sword in a war with the Nairs of Travancore during the Battle of the Nedumkotta (1789), in which he was forced to withdraw due to the severe joint attack from Travancore army and British army. The Nair army under the leadership of Raja Kesavadas again defeated the Mysore army near Aluva. The Maharaja, Dharma Raja, gave the famous sword to the Nawab of Arcot, from where the sword went to London. The sword was on display at the Wallace Collection, No. 1 Manchester Square, London.
Tipu was commonly known as the Tiger of Mysore and adopted this animal as the symbol (bubri/ babri) of his rule. It is said that Tipu Sultan was hunting in the forest with a French friend. He came face to face with a tiger. His gun did not work, and his dagger fell on the ground as the tiger jumped on him. He reached for the dagger, picked it up, and killed the tiger with it. That earned him the name "the Tiger of Mysore". He even had French engineers build a mechanical tiger for his palace. The device, known as Tipu's Tiger, is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not only did Tipu place relics of tigers around his palace and domain, but also had the emblem of a tiger on his banners and some arms and weapons. Sometimes this tiger was very ornate and had inscriptions within the drawing, alluding to Tipu's faith. Historian Alexander Beatson reported that "in his palace was found a great variety of curious swords, daggers, fusils, pistols, and blunderbusses; some were of exquisite workmanship, mounted with gold, or silver, and beautifully inlaid and ornamented with tigers' heads and stripes, or with Persian and Arabic verses".
The last sword used by Tipu in his last battle, at Sri Rangapatnam, and the ring worn by him were taken by the British forces as war trophies. Till April 2004, they were kept on display at the British Museum London as gifts to the museum from Maj-Gen Augustus W.H. Meyrick and Nancy Dowager.
At an auction in London in April 2004, Vijay Mallya purchased the sword of Tipu Sultan and some other historical artefacts, and brought them back to India.
In October 2013, another sword owned by Tipu Sultan and decorated with his babri (tiger stripe motif) surfaced and was auctioned by Sotheby's. It was purchased for 98,500 £ by a bidder on the phone.
WIKIPEDIA
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This is the house where apanna lived. It was a great story. Guru Ragavendrar knew about apanna and came by yatra from kumbakonam via tirupathi, adoni and reached this small gramam where apanna lived called bichalaya. Bichalaya means cooking food without fire. Apanna was blessed with such a power. When Ragavendra reached bichalaya, he met apanna and stayed with apanna in his house for few days. Within a span of 1 week apanna realised that ragavendrar is a great person. He didnt have the heart to leave ragavendrar and requested ragavendra to stay with him. They both were together in the same house for 12 years. Once ragavendra knew his time for jeeva samadhi, he asked apanna alone to go for a seva in the nearest gramam(because apanna wont allow raganvendra to go in for this jeeva samadhi). By the time he went to manthralayam and asked his other sishyas to build a brindhavan around his. Apanna was curious to know" why he was sent alone for seva when there were many sishyas?". He came back to bichjalaya and heard that ragavendrar has gone to manthralayam for jeeva samadhi. There started the sthothra "POOJYAYA RAGAVENDRAYA".He prayed the lord and had the river tungabadra leaving way for him. Knowing that Apanna is coming ragavendra asked his sishyas to speed up the process. By the time apanna comes manthralayam, he sees only the brindhavan. He cries to guru. Then Ragavendra shos this jyothis avatar from within and says apanna not to worry. From then on Apanna started visiting manthralayam daily walking from Bichalaya.