3000y old, but so so fresh. 220 masterpieces from Sanskrit and Prakrit. Advice, intrigue, flirtation, quarrels, laughs, yearning and letting go.
OUT ON 14 FEB
@HarperCollinsIN
Get a copy, gift a copy. Links soon!
@AnushaSRao2
King Bhoja hears news of war as he's composing his champu-ramayana.
He decides to finish the yuddha-kanda after taking inspiration from battle. He never returns.
(champu-ramayana is still incomplete)
these guys think hardware means building a juicer, friend. early in my PhD, I did 500 nm UV lithography to study photon recycling in semiconductors; experiments would only work in winter because of weird thermal expansion/humidity effects. this is hard stuff.
so asml makes 25 machines a year at like $300M each, every good fab is completely dependent on them, and you're telling me no one in the startup world is crazy enough to try to compete? this is one of the main ai supply chain bottlenecks
In the 1950s, Raghuvira compiled the granddaddy of all English-Sanskrit dictionaries on little cards. He died in a car accident in 1963; it was never printed.
60y later, it's being printed in 9 vols 🎊🎉 Should be available in march.
our only window into how the streets of ancient india sounded:
bazaar scene in prakrit novel kuvalayamala (800 CE)
some 20 langs are featured, including tajika (=arabic)
Tell me about a common historical myth that makes your hackles rise. I don't mean actual disinformation like Holocaust denial; I mean stuff like "Napoleon was short!"
For me it's probably "corsets were torture devices for the rich" and "romantic love is a very modern concept."
3000y old, but so so fresh. 220 masterpieces from Sanskrit and Prakrit. Advice, intrigue, flirtation, quarrels, laughs, yearning and letting go.
OUT ON 14 FEB
@HarperCollinsIN
Get a copy, gift a copy. Links soon!
@AnushaSRao2
As a school boy, I encountered this question that made an impression on the way I thought about science:
You step out of the house during an eclipse, and see little rings beamed onto the pavement by the trees. Find the density of the sun.
[solution follows]
The next time you grind pepper on your meal, remember how highly prized the spice was to the Romans, who spent 50 million sesterces a year importing pepper from India. As a price for not plundering Rome in 410 AD, Alaric the Goth was paid off with three thousand pounds of pepper!
an old Sanskrit verse on a Bengali caught stealing fish
"What's under your arm"
"A book"
"It drips?"
"from rasa in the story"
"I see a tail"
"palmleaves"
"I can see scales"
"that's writing"
"Why does it smell?"
"stench from the battle scenes"
the gaudas cheat the world thus.
As a Bengali, I feel entitled to say that this image -- of a man plundering a large fish from the deposed prime minister's residence -- is one of the most Bengali pictures of all time
I remember this verse (~800 CE) whenever I hear of a theoretician's prediction getting lab approval 25y later.
In today's case,
@chklovskii
's DC step-up voltage transformer based on the quantum hall effect:
grammarian panini's last moments before a lion eats him up. students flee.
last words are the final sutra of the ashtadhyayi:
ah! ah!
अ अ (8.4.68)
@typingvanara
This is not some tired re-translation of the usual material.
We read 150 full size Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha texts for this project, many never translated, some still languishing as manuscripts.
You've spent a lifetime on Sanskrit? You'll still see stuff you haven't seen
3000y old, but so so fresh. 220 masterpieces from Sanskrit and Prakrit. Advice, intrigue, flirtation, quarrels, laughs, yearning and letting go.
OUT ON 14 FEB
@HarperCollinsIN
Get a copy, gift a copy. Links soon!
@AnushaSRao2
Aug 11 519 AD
genius astronomer aryabhata and his son devarajan observe an eclipse from a ship off the kerala coast
they are unbrahmined for the sins of going to sea and observing an eclipse
if you like this stuff,
@AnushaSRao2
and I have a 📔 coming out this valentine's day via
@HarperCollinsIN
How to Love in Sanskrit
3000 years of pick-up lines, wisdom and solace
translated to be enjoyed 100%, you won't regret picking this up
Why did Vivekananda ask Nikola Tesla in 1896 to find an equation connecting mass and energy?
Because in Shanti Parva Section 233 of the Mahabharata, Vyasa says that matter can become energy.
Check your Mbh. for details.
1/2
a roman empire "bharat mata" mosaic surrounded by her exports:
ivory, pepper, sandal, textiles, elephant, tiger
from sicily (300 CE). snapped this at
@metmuseum
3000y old, but so so fresh. 220 masterpieces from Sanskrit and Prakrit. Advice, intrigue, flirtation, quarrels, laughs, yearning and letting go.
OUT ON 14 FEB
@HarperCollinsIN
Get a copy, gift a copy. Links soon!
@AnushaSRao2
A Sanskrit verse using only two consonants: s and r
ससार सारसीं सास्रां सोऽसौ सरसि सारसः ।
रासं रासं ससारासौ सरसो ऽसारसं सरः ॥ स्वीयम्
The Sarus crane approached his tearful mate. She only honked and left for a lonely lake.
Astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar used to travel 80 kilometers every week from the Yerkes Observatory to the University of Chicago, where he taught a course attended by only two students. When asked why he spent his time this way, the professor replied
Welcome to our 2021 Schmidt Science Fellows 3/6 – Anastasia Korolj
@UofT
, Suhas Mahesh
@UniofOxford
, Sebastian Musslick
@Princeton
, and Ofer Neufeld
@TechnionLive
Learn more about these new Fellows and the full 2021 cohort here:
Tell me about a common historical myth that makes your hackles rise. I don't mean actual disinformation like Holocaust denial; I mean stuff like "Napoleon was short!"
For me it's probably "corsets were torture devices for the rich" and "romantic love is a very modern concept."
tatha's review is here: "ślāghanīya. vayodharmakke takkante māḍiddāre. haḷē padyagaḷannu hosa rītiyalli tōrisiddāre. tumba chennāgide" 🔥
"Praiseworthy. These is the right thing to do at that age. Old poems presented in a new style. Beautiful"
these days we forget that humans would memorize vast tracts commonly, and some still do.
at the 6th buddhist council in 1954, monks recited the pali canon from memory-- 10M syllables,
exactly the way it was done upon the Buddha's death
this is like memorizing 140 animal farms.
On the topic of AI training on copyrighted data, many people have echoed the argument made by Andrew Ng below. But it would be interesting to think about what copyright law would be like if humans had the ability to memorize entire books and recite them when prompted to do so.
When we write anything even vaguely academic, we kill ourselves citationing the fuck out of everything, while 18th/19th century dudes were just there publishing five volumes of ‘Here are some Thoughts I had in the Bath’.
Bhushana bhatta's opening prayer to Shiva and Parvati: to be able to complete his father's masterpiece* such that none can tell where one ends and the other begins, as is the case with the divine couple in their Ardhanarishvara form
*Bana's Kadambari
Michael Hahn would tell students it takes 10 yrs before you pick up a Sanskrit text and read it just like that. Sounds right to me.
Grammar ≠ biggest issue. You're now a time traveller, relearning all social protocols like a 2 yr old. Can't speed that up.
Another example:
Sanskrit writers sometimes talk about the water in a sword blade (dhārājala). How can a sword have water in it?
Dictionaries will lead astray; translations will ignore. To know, you have to see a Wootz steel sword.
That's why it takes 10 years.
Michael Hahn would tell students it takes 10 yrs before you pick up a Sanskrit text and read it just like that. Sounds right to me.
Grammar ≠ biggest issue. You're now a time traveller, relearning all social protocols like a 2 yr old. Can't speed that up.
Verse using only three consonants (ra,ta,na)
arātir atanor ātta-nārī-tanur anuttaraḥ ।
trinetraḥ tanutān nūnaṃ natānāṃ no nirārtitām ॥ svīyam
Three eyed Shiva, who is Cupid's foe, whose body holds a woman, and who is unmatched— may he keep us, who bow to him, well.
kashmiri king matrigupta wordlessly honors the author bhartrimentha by placing his sanskrit epic poem on a golden plate, implying that that it is positively dripping with rasa (500 CE?)
Why just E=mc2? Also see foreign policy advice in Ramayana 1.72.17
Accept China. Take her hand in yours.
pratīccha caināṃ bhadraṃ te pāṇiṃ gṛhṇīṣva pāṇinā
Why did Vivekananda ask Nikola Tesla in 1896 to find an equation connecting mass and energy?
Because in Shanti Parva Section 233 of the Mahabharata, Vyasa says that matter can become energy.
Check your Mbh. for details.
1/2
#Roman
#Baths
:
#Lead
#Cato
the Elder recommended the use of lead lined/coated vessels for food preparation as well adding it to wine and food as a sweetener and preservative. It leaves a sweet taste because of the formation of ‘sugar of lead’ 😱
Would this not look smashing on a V-day card today?
It's from 100 CE-- the Gāthāsaptaśatī compiled in the Satavahana age
Pre-order link coming soon
@AnushaSRao2
3000y old, but so so fresh. 220 masterpieces from Sanskrit and Prakrit. Advice, intrigue, flirtation, quarrels, laughs, yearning and letting go.
OUT ON 14 FEB
@HarperCollinsIN
Get a copy, gift a copy. Links soon!
@AnushaSRao2
rainy week in toronto. remembering some sanskrit ways of describing the rain 1/n
goṣ-pada-pūraṃ vṛṣṭo devaḥ
it rained enough to fill the cow hoof prints
The best bit-- no made up words here 🥹 Seems to be based on only historical attestations.
Monier-Williams, Apte, Borooah filled their dictionaries with yucky neologisms.
In the 1950s, Raghuvira compiled the granddaddy of all English-Sanskrit dictionaries on little cards. He died in a car accident in 1963; it was never printed.
60y later, it's being printed in 9 vols 🎊🎉 Should be available in march.
There have been attempts to write the yuddha-kanda by later poets. The best is perhaps by Rajachudamani Dikshita, though he too falls short of Bhoja's genius.
It is blasphemous. Just because it's popular and written in past doesn't mean it's sacrosanct. In comparision Kalidasa's Kumarasambhavam, though detailed is not blasphemous.
"पुराणमित्येव न साधु सर्वम्"
Such works don't enjoy SishtaSammati and can safely be treated as such.
@sridatta_a
If you spread nonsense, you get a Padma Shri and sit on governmental committees. If you spend a lifetime painstakingly editing manuscripts and generating primary knowledge (like KV Sarma or SR Sarma), you die in obscurity. No surprise which path people prefer.
A Scribe's Apology
"Wise readers—do not swear angrily at me dropping a letter, or not dotting an i in my haste. My head bows prostrate, hovering at your lotus-feet like a bee. Bear with me."
Useful tip:
Add a tilde after your keyword while searching on to also include variations on the word.
Eg. suhas~ will also throw up results for suhash, shuhas, suhasa.
😔✌️ happy days? long gone, fam. future's lookin' bleaker by the day. tomorrow? gonna be a real bummer. world's lost its vibe.
- Vyasa to his mom Satyavati
अतिक्रान्तसुखाः कालाः प्रत्युपस्थितदारुणाः ।
श्वः श्वः पापीयदिवसाः पृथिवी गतयौवना ॥ Mahabharata 1.119.6
The text of the Ramayana was the only input. It's done a pretty good job of figuring out the meter, morphology etc. The output really has a very Ramayana vibe.
परीक्ष्य सत्कुलं विद्यां वयः शौर्यं सुशीलताम् ।
विधिर्ददाति निपुणः कन्यामिव दरिद्रताम् ॥
(Subhāṣitāvalī, 1400 CE)
After carefully screening
for every virtue
Father Fate rewards men
With his favourite daughter in marriage:
Miss Penny Lessness
"Lakshmana, fetch my bow and arrows. The ocean will run dry today. The monkeys can go on foot."
चापमानय सौमित्रे शरांश्चाशीविषोपमान् ।
सागरं शोषयिष्यामि पद्भ्यां यान्तु प्लवंगमाः ॥
nine years ago, I went on a walk with a school boy who wanted to chat about becoming a scientist. today
@_chanrt_
accepted a PhD position in EvolBio at a Max Planck Institute 👏👏
UPDATE:
I sent my first PhD application on October 30th.
21 applications, and 6 stressful months later, I've decided to join
@MPI_EvolBio
for my PhD.
I will soon graduate with a BS-MS (in Physics!) from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
from many years
@bibekdebroy
has been a constant source of encouragement for my literary activities. Honoured that a scholar and translator of this calibre has written a blurb for our book
@AnushaSRao2
"Apabhramsha is a crude, degraded language"
Read Svayambhu or Pushpadanta and you'll marvel at the sophistication of Apabhramsha puns and extended rhymes. Seriously heady stuff.
Tell me about a common historical myth that makes your hackles rise. I don't mean actual disinformation like Holocaust denial; I mean stuff like "Napoleon was short!"
For me it's probably "corsets were torture devices for the rich" and "romantic love is a very modern concept."
No ammount of reading can make me appriciate the beauty of using the idol of Ganapati as pillow. If more reading were to change my sensibility on this matter, I'll prefer to be an illiterate.
कर्तुमिष्टमनिष्टं वा कः प्रभुर्विधिना विना? ।
कर्तारमन्यमारोप्य लोकस्तुष्यति कुप्य��ि ॥
(Sāyaṇa's Subhāśita-sudhā-nidhi 42.5)
"Only destiny has power over things, agreeable or not. Men merely celebrate or fume after assigning agency elsewhere."
This was probably the beginning of my realisation that science is not about knowing all the equations and theories. Being able to solve every problem in a textbook might not mean very much.
You are only allowed to photograph 20% of the manuscript. Research requires whole thing? Too bad, you have to copy it by hand.
(img: Jagaddhara's unpublished Vasavadatta commentary)
Just finished reading
@krishashok
‘s amazing book Masala Lab, a molecule by molecule tour of how to make great IndIan food. Is the sort of book I’d always hoped someone would write.