The book of Job is about Job’s trials at the hands of Satan. Here is a paraphrased version of the story: Job is a pious man. Satan approaches God and says that Job is so pious mostly because God has kept him fairly well off. If God were to take away all of Job’s possessions, then Job would fail is his duties as a pious man. God accepts this challenge and takes all possessions away from Job. Despite this, Job remains pious. As his misfortunes pile up, Job finally caves in and questions God about this ‘injustice’. In response, God emphasizes his sovereignty in creating and maintaining the world. Finally, humbled by God’s chastising, Job turns speechless, giving up and repenting his previous requests of justice. To this, Job is restored to health, gaining double the riches he possessed before and having new children.

This is a typical story of a righteous sufferer. As you have probably guessed, there is a remarkably similar story in Markandeya Purana: the story of King Harishchandra. Similar to Job, King Harishchandra is an extremely righteous king who never goes back on his word and never lies. For various reasons (the reasons change with every retelling of the story) sage Vishwamitra, once approached Harishchandra and informed him of a promise made by the king to donate his entire kingdom. True to his word, Harishchandra did so. The sage, proclaimed that for an act of donation to be completed, an additional amount as Dakshina (honorarium) had to be paid. Harishchandra, with no money in his hands, had to sell his wife and son. Eventually, he had to sell himself to a guard at a cremation ground.

The king, his wife, and son endured tremendous hardships. Thanks to an unfortunate sequence of events, the son dies, and his wife brings the son’s body to the cremation ground for the last rites. She is so poor that she could not even pay the taxes needed to cremate him. Even though Harishchandra realizes that his son is dead, his wife is begging him to help perform the last rites, and he is overcome is grief, he does not waver from his dharma (duty). He asks for the sacred wedding necklace around his wife’s neck as payment of the tax. She willingly rests her head on a stone slab and asks Harishchandra to chop her head off for the necklace (the only way a woman may take her wedding necklace off while her husband is alive is in death). As he gets ready to chop her head the Gods appear and inform him that his righteousness was being tested. His son, wife, and kingdom is restored to him.

Theological import and motivations for these two myths aside, I am interested in how they came to be so similar. Like with the case of Orpheus and Adi Shankara, there are too many similar elements (riches to rags, death of progeny, survival of the spouse, and so on). So I wager that this is no coincidence.

Let us take a closer look at the earliest known dates for these myths. The earliest textual origins for the Book of Job is placed in 4th century BCE. Whereas, the origins of Markandeya Purana is unknown, the earliest known written form is placed in 3rd century CE. Naturally, it is entirely possible that the puranas were an established oral tradition prior to this date. Besides, this still doesn’t provide us with a connection between the two myths.

Disclaimer: what follows next is entirely my hypothesis without scholarly research. Feel free to debase and/or ignore my speculations.

Looking at the geography between the Middle East and India, we see that the Persian empire occupied most of the space. Interestingly, there is a long history of Judaism in Persia. The 4th century BCE (the period attributed to the written origins of the Book of Job) saw huge political turmoil in Persia thanks to Alexander the Great. His empire reached into the greater India region. Given that some anthropologists hypothesize that Alexander’s troops learned kissing from India and too it back to Greece. It is not at all inconceivable that the story of a righteous sufferer traveled between the Jews in Persia and the Vedic/proto-Hindu people in India.

The question that still remains is which way did it travel? From India to Persia, or the other way around? If anyone has any hypothesis, clues, arguments, I would love to hear them. As of now, my speculation stops here.

UPDATE: The Book of Job seems to have been pre-dated by an ancient Sumerian text “A man and his god“. This gives us a good idea of the direction in which the story may have travelled, but that doesn’t explain the how the exegeses travelled. I have a hard time believing that the Jews came up with it all on their own simply because there aren’t many philosophical treatises written by the ancient Jewish people. The Greek and Indians, on the other hand, were a whole another story. My bet is that the exposition and exegeses associated with the Book of Job either came from Greece with Alexander the Great, or the story first travelled to India, and the philosophers in India gave it the philosophical mortar and this travelled back the Persia via Alexander’s army and made it back to the Jewish people.

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Here is an excerpt:

When the 1860 conference began, chemistry was in a total state of disarray. Although most chemists believed in atoms and molecules, nobody could agree on molecular formulas. Even simple molecules such as water were hotly debated: Most leading chemists at the time claimed that water’s molecular formula was OH, and a minority argued that it was H₂O. More complex molecules were an even bigger battleground: At least 19 different representations of acetic acid were being used in textbooks of that era.

The motivation for the conference is obvious. Read the entire article to understand its significance.

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• Logic – Flawed at best

Tim Maly, the author of Quiet Babylon, in today’s post dated Sept. 3rd 2010, talks about the concept, history, fiction, and reality of Cyborgs. He said:

So when you think about cyborgs, [...] Don’t think about total loss of self, bodies encroached and erased by technology, humanity swallowed whole. Instead think of cellphones. Think about off-loaded memories, of constantly renewed enhancement and new abilities. But also think about insistent ringtones, and demanding interruptions, think of externally controlled access, and a reliance on a sprawling infrastructure. [emphasis added]

Curiously, Scott Adams, on the same day, talks about cell phones and the need for renaming the device. He said:

My suggestion, which I offer simply to prime the pump, is to call the phone your “head.” This term recognizes that you are essentially a cyborg with a detachable brain. You offload a lot of your memory into your device, and it helps you communicate and gather information, just like the other parts of your general skull area.

Also, neither post links to the other or even acknowledges the other’s existence. I think it’s really curious that two people would elucidate identical ideas on almost the same subject on the same day. If it’s a coincidence, it’s one hell of a coincidence. Plagiarism anyone?

Lincoln used it brilliantly in his Cooper Union speech that made him an instant political star. He was politically a nobody when he gave that speech, and he started with “The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them.” He started by lowering expectations and making the contents of his speech sound like something anyone could have come up with. It couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it is argued that this speech was responsible for his nomination and eventual victory in the presidential race.

George W. Bush was a master of dubitatio. He started off many of his public engagements as a knucklehead and sparking the meme “bushism“. But no one can argue the success of this rhetorical move because it make him ‘likable’, ‘relatable’, or in rhetorical terms virtuous, to his audience. Once he had his audience seeing him favourably, and trusting him to lead like they would have liked to, he (by definition) became an effective leader. Now, whether the leadership was merited, or  how this leadership was utilized, is an entirely different matter.

The fact remains, both were masters of dubitatio, and they used it well.

Interestingly, there has been cross-pollination of stories between these two. I know of at least one instance where the ‘plagiarism’, if you will, is all too evident. The Indians plagiarized the Greek when telling a story from the life of Adi Shankaracharya. Specifically, the story of Adi Shakaracharya and Kollur Mookambika has been ripped off from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Let us start with the story of Adi Shankar and Mookambika. The following has been quoted from the wikipedia article on the subject, dated Aug. 31, 2010:

It is believed that Adi Shankaracharya had a vision of Sri Mookambika Devi and installed the deity here. The legend goes that Adi Shankara mediated at Kodachadri hills and Devi incarnated before him asking for his wish. He revealed his wish to install the Devi idol in a place in Kerala to worship where he wanted. Devi agreed but put forward a challenge that she will follow Shankara and he should not look back till he reaches his destination. But to test Shankara, Devi deliberately stopped the voice of her anklets when they reached Kollur whereupon Shankara turned and looked back because of doubt. Devi then asked Shankara to install her vigraha, just as he sees her, at that very location in Kollur.

Here is Virgil‘s account of Orpheus and Eurydice copied from (again) the wikipedia article on the subject, dated Aug. 31, 2010:

The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (also known as Agriope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice ran into a nest of snakes which bit her fatally on her heel. Distraught, Orpheus played such sad songs and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following and in his anxiety as soon as he reached the upper world he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.

Now, who copied who? As it turns out Virgil lived in 1st century BCE whereas Adi Shakaracharya lived in 9th century CE. You do the math.

I love mythologies and the many dots you can connect with it.

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And here is the attached flyer [transcript follows]:

Transcript of the solicitation text:

Dear Sir, Madam
We understanding that your esteemed concern has a considerable requirement of travel service during your office/VIPS visit of Delhi and other places. We are pleased to introduce our selves to you as renowned tourist travel Agent. We have a fleet of brand new tourist/A/C cars and already handing Travel business of various reputed commercial houses and hotels from all over India. We are anxious to enlist your esteemed concern along honored [sic]¹ clients. We are sending our rates as under, which are sute [sic]² you would find as reasonable & acceptable.

So, did you figure out what exactly is being offered and how? :)

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I find it hard to believe that such excrement is still sold like it is worth something. But, to Half-Price’s credit, its priced at less than half the original price. In fact, $5 is more like 25% of the original price.

Seeing that price tag, I couldn’t help but mimic Palin saying, “sucky, sucky. Five Dolla. Me love you long time!“

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I guess it has adopted me now :| Here he is:

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Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens.

Who do you think said that? Micheal Moore? Noam Chomsky? Nah! ‘Actually, its the CIA. That’s right, the American Central Intelligence Agency. Wikileaks has more…

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After reading this exposition on the issue by Great Bong. I realized that if Park51 were actually an effort by terror-loving organizations, then it’s a master stroke indeed! I find it hard to believe that Soho Properties did not foresee any issues or controversies with announcing a major construction project to benefit Muslims so close to Ground Zero. Knowing the tea baggers, Fox News, Sarah Palin, and their ilk. It is preposterous to claim innocence to not having anticipated such a backlash. So what forced them to proceed ahead with the plan?

Consider this: let some radical Islamic terrorist organization X want to indulge in a negative PR campaign against the US. Specifically, create a propaganda that depicts US as an intolerant nation, thereby denying US its moral high-ground in the so called “war on terror”. All X has to do is create a political catch-22 situation for US by capitalizing on the severely polarized political atmosphere near an election season. The Park51 fits the bill perfectly. The Right and the republican party simply plays into X’s ploy and is vituperative in its opposition to the construction despite having no constitutional or legal basis for doing so, whereas the Left and Libertarians play their part by opposing the Right. The catch-22 here is that if Park51 does not come through, the the US is demonstrated as a bigoted nation with none of the freedoms that it is putatively defending through its “war on terror”: bad PR. On the other hand, if Park51 does come  through, then Islamic organizations like X can claim victory in Islamization of the US (again potentially bad PR if not handled well), which will further enrage the Right to act Islamophobic (definitely bad PR!).

So are the entities responsible for Park51 unfortunate victims of the far Right’s bigotry? It is entirely possible. But are we sure that there not more than what meets the eye here? That’s something to think about.

P.S.: Even if my conspiracy theory was true, IMHO pulling the curtains on Park51 is a far worse proposition then letting it go through and then engaging in a careful discourse and PR campaign to mitigate the damage from the far Right’s Islamophobia.

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