EXT12-ANCIENT EUROPE—OLD HISTORY AND GREAT SPIRITUALITY

BY PRAGYAN SHARMA POLAVARAPU

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One of my leisure time  avocations ,for personal pleasure, is investigation about birth of “English novel” (the old classical English novel) and  about origins of  Modern English language. Modern English as we know now  took shape perhaps  700 to 800 years after the times when an  “Old English“   was  spoken  mainly in southern England.

 I consider development of English novel as an invention as great as  the discovery of electron or development of TV. So  my perennial interest is in knowing about origins of modern English language which nurtured the new class of literature called novel.

 Let us also note that the  history of  West Europe mainly comprises of  (a)ancient Christian religion ,the glow of message of Lord Jesus Christ, becoming popular among poorer section of society and its slow  spread in entire society,and  (b)its super-imposition on the most beautiful and sublime philosophy, fine arts and literature of ancient  Greek and Roman civilization in the Renaissance period of Europe.

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Let us first examine the great river of Time.Let us  go back 8000 years in past time . let us divide  “Old Time”,  on the Time Axis of Dr Einstein, into sections  like  OT4,OT3, OT2 and OT1  in  the  BC  era .  It is the  minus direction of the Time Axis!   Each OT period is of 2000 years back wards in the times before Lord Jesus Christ. Now   I  take  OT3  for special study.  We  are at a distance of about 8000 years from OT3 (6000 years before Christ and 2000 years after Christ)!

In OT3 (8000 years ago )already great civilizations were flourishing in many river valleys. 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! 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 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, building cities with palaces and straight paved streets , enjoying delicious spicy dishes , wearing gold and diamond necklaces etc. They adorned themselves with  gold ornaments  and wore  embroidered cottons and silk dresses. They could store dried food grains for years and could feed  whole towns and  villages.  They built big  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 recorded their writing  on thick fabrics, clay tablets and stone surfaces. To people of those distant  times  such inventions/discoveries were  surely as thrilling as the  discoveries like atom and molecule, electron and neutron, triode and transistor, DNA and RNA are to us!  

They created harsh moral codes, legal codes, property codes, grammar codes  etc  going against which was punishable by death. 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 centuries- long draught  hit north-west of the  Indian sub-continent. People entirely moved out abandoning their towns and cities and spread in to all parts of the Indian sub-continent. The majority who shifted to south India founded the great Dravidian civilization famed for building majestic temples . 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 . There were perhaps  incessant wars with Dravidians and earlier Australasian people.  Such ancient  civilizations existed  mainly in river valleys . Such civilizations existed in distant lands  like Egypt, China  and at other places. Let us bid a respectful good bye to them all!

Let us come to comparatively “Recent Times”-- to 500 BC i.e. 2500 years from today. These are the times of Greek, Roman civilizations, Dravidian(South Indian)civilization , Indo-Aryan civilization , Iranian civilization,  Buddhist civilization  etc .  For us even these times are  “Ancient Time”. But  we can compare the times of their brilliance with our present moorings in the River of Time--  with our  age of computer s,  IC  engines ,turbines and electrical motors , color TV ,space rockets  etc. Let us too not forget those  most unstable and terrible things called atom bombs and ICBMs.

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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 .

  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 known as 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 and all the Greek and Roman scholars moved to cities of new modern Europe .

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Let us again go back to the  West Roman empire i.e. the first great Roman empire established around 400 AD conquering all the western parts of Europe and the Asian and north African lands around the Mediterranean sea . The Roman rukers were harsh militarists following an urban- oriented culture but some of them  created great democratic institutions and democratic traditions. Their political philosophy, culture, art and literature(epics like Iliad and Odyssey)  inspired modern Europe for 2000 years. In ancient times after the Roman empire replaced the  ancient Greek kingdoms, the  magnificent 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 . At the time when Christianity was born, there was a vast multi-ethnic , conservative religious minded  society in the Asian lands around mediterranian sea. There were several small kingdoms of Arabs and other people. All the society was simple- minded , god fearing and conservative and was  hard working rural society . Historians say there was robust trading activity and  much trading by sea. But on the top of all, the  society was  ruled by Roman governors with an iron hand and controlled by roman armies. We should not forget  that in those busy ancient times there was also lot of  poverty and suffering and injustice. All  this   historic information is available in the  many  reputed internet sites  and on line encyclopedias.