EXT12-ANCIENT EUROPE—OLD HISTORY AND GREAT SPIRITUALITY

BY PRAGYAN SHARMA POLAVARAPU

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One of my leisure time  investigations(for personal pleasure) was about birth of English novel (the old classical English novel) and  about origins of  Modern English language  which perhaps took shape  700 to 800 years after  “Old English“  was  being spoken in southern England. I consider development of English novel as an invention as great as  the discovery of electron or development of TV. My investigation(for my personal pleasure) proceeded further on the following path.

Let us remember that the old  history of  West Europe is filled with  (a)ancient Christian religion becoming popular among poorer section of society and slow  spread of the glow of message of Lord Jesus Christ  and (b)its super-imposition on the sublime philosophies and fine arts and literature of ancient  Greek and Roman civilization in the Renaissance period of Europe.

(2)

Let us  divide  “Old Time” ( on the Time Axis of Dr Einstein) into sections  like  OT4,OT3, OT2 and OT1  in  the  BC  era i.e. in the minus direction of the Time Axis!   Each OT period is of 2000 years and  I  take  OT3  for special study.  The present era is beyond 2000 AD and so we are at a distance of about 8000 years from OT3!

In OT3 already great civilizations were flourishing in many river valleys. We speak about those old times with extreme respect as great town and city builders, mighty warriors and great philosophers respected by the kings lived in those times.  Metals like copper and tin and much later iron were obtained by burning stones with coal for days and weeks. First all weapons and implements were made of soft bronze alloys and later with tough iron and steel. People of those civilizations knew extensively about agriculture, horse chariots, city life , palace life ,delicious spicy dishes ,gold and diamond necklaces, straight paved streets etc. They adorned themselves with  embroidered cottons and silk dresses and gold ornaments. They could store dried food grains for years and sufficient to feed  whole towns and  villages.  They built palatial brick houses and developed  sharp weapons. They discovered most effective herbal medicines, a proof of their diligent research oriented minds . They created fine musical instruments .They created  languages with  nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs  and propositions  . They invented writing and wrote on thick fabrics, clay tablets and stone surfaces. For people of those distant eras such inventions/discoveries were  as thrilling as our new  discoveries like atom and molecule, electron and neutron, triode and transistor, DNA and RNA.  

They created harsh moral codes, legal codes, property codes, grammar codes  etc  going against which was punishable by death. The names of those distant civilizations are strange —Assyrian, Babylonian ,Sumerian,Arkadian ,Egyptian civilization,Eelam Iranian civilization,Indus  Valley civilization etc. Many of them are  6000 years to  8000 years from the present  or even a thousand years less ancient or a thousand years more ancient! Some had   special high points and some had weak spots. For example, as the latest scientific findings show, the  vast almost unlimited agricultural base of Indus Valley civilization was wiped out when a centuries long draught  hit north-west of the  Indian subcontinent.The whole people spread to all parts of the Indian sub-continent. The majority who shifted to south india founded the great Dravidian civilization. Again after a few centuries the Indo-Aryan people entered the subcontinent through north-west passes in Himalayas and founded the ancient Vedic Aryan civilization in north India after incessant wars with existing people .   Such ancient  civilizations existed  mainly in river valleys . Such civilizations existed also in distant land like China and India and at other places. Let us bid a respectful good bye to them all!

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Let us come to comparatively “Recent Times”-- to times of Greek, Roman civilizations, Dravidian(South Indian)civilization and Indo-Aryan civilization ,  Arab, Iranian, Chinese ,African civilizations etc .Let us now halt  at 500 BC i.e. 2500 years from today.For us even this is “Ancient Time”. But still we can compare with our present moorings in the River of Time--  in  the age of computer s,  IC  engines ,turbines and electrical motors , color TV ,space rockets  etc. Let us too not forget the most unstable-minded  and terrible atom bomb and ICBM.

Scientists most definitely declare “These bones belong to a human who lived in  this  century and not that century”  , “These horns belong to an animal which lived 30,000 years back and not 10,000 years back”etc. They declare “This bunch of grain/this cotton piece/this  bowl belongs to this century and does not belong to that century”.How can they say so definitely .There are scientists who study the ancient pictorial scripts on clay tablets, metal engravings, engravings on stone . There are scientific  disciplines of Archeology /Archeogenetics  etc  using  most accurate modern scientific techniques like “ radiocarbon dating” ,  “study of ancient DNA” and even studying huge databases of laboratory /historical data .

 

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In 500 BC there were already big and small empires in  South  Asia , West Asia ,Mediterranean region, China etc. Greek and later Roman empires dominated European and peripheral North African lands .The Persian Empire dominated  the Middle East, modern-day Iran, Iraq, Syria etc.  Greek and the later Roman empires on the one hand and  Iranian empire  on the other had frequent wars with each other . There were great  Greek city-states which rebelled against the  strong Iranian empire. Alexander the Great ( 356 BC-323BC ) created his vast Macedonian Greek empire and ruled independent of  the Roman empire. Soon  Greek power declined.  The powerful  West Roman Empire came into being .  The Greek city-states which once were  very flourishing declined and   Greece  became part of West Roman Empire.  The West Roman empire  was powerful and ruled most of  West Asia, Medierranian region and north African coastal regions but  broke up  in 476 CE. To study the great glow of message of Lord Jesus Christ we have to stop in the very early period of rule of the West Roman Empire.

 After the West Roman empire broke up power passed to the East Roman empire ,also  called Byzantine empire . It was powerful   till 15^th century  with  capital  at  Constantinople(present city of  Istanbul, Turkey) . The East Roman empire  preserved the Greek-Roman culture in Europe for centuries . But in later part  there were frequent wars and great political turmoil  . New European  kingdoms arose and they rebelled agaist Byzantine empire .  The  Byzantine empire fell in 1453 when Ottoman Turkish empire  conquered Constantinople .

(5)

Let us go back to the time of West Roman empire . The Romans were harsh militarists following an urban- oriented culture but also created great democratic traditions  for  ruling  people . Their political philosophy inspired modern Europe for 2000 years. Even after the Roman empire defeated the ancient Greek kingdoms, the  ancient Greek culture was greatly respected  and loved by the Romans .

There were also great ancient Indian and Chinese civilization at that time and lot of trading . There were organized kingdoms at many places in the world on all continents

Ancient Christianity was an Asiatic religion of Mediterranean region of West Asia and had close connection with ancient Israel . Historians and archaeologists say that  ancient Israelite culture evolved from the pre-existing Canaanite civilization.  Israeli kingdoms existed 3000 years ago( 900 BC).It is said that when the Israeli kingdom  was destroyed  by the Assyrian empire, the Jews became dispersed and  lived as  religion- oriented communities in many countries.

At the time when Christianity was born, there was a vast multi-ethnic , conservative religious minded  society .There were several small kingdoms of Arabs and other people. All the society was perhaps simple- minded ,god fearing and conservative and was  hard working rural oriented society . Historians say there was robust trading activity and  much trading by sea. But on the top the  society was  ruled by Roman governors with an iron hand and controlled by roman armies. We cannot forget the possibility that in such busy hard working  society even in ancient times there would be poverty and suffering and injustice. All  the  historic information is obtained from the many standard reputed internet sites  and on line encyclopedias. For this I am highly indebted to those precious modern knowledge-bases.