Travelling Back in Time
09 July 2013
Taxila, so the Greeks who were in Alexander’s train tell us, was a city of high culture and learning. Here the streets were sometimes roamed by the philosophers who wore only a loincloth and lived outside where farmland gave way to forest. They came into town and I would have liked to have been there to hear their Stoic views on life – views that they abide by with rigid exactitude. Though they followed a thinking very similar to that of Diogenes, they nevertheless valued life and did not endorse destroying it or persecuting another simply for adhering to a differing way of life. And how could they?
Labels: History, Punjab, Taxila, The Salt Range and the Potohar Plateau, Travel
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
6 Comments:
- At 9 July 2013 at 11:41, Haroon said...
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This has been my one wish since childhood; since you told me about that great city in Alexander in Scindhia. Thank you for articulating it again.
For everyone else reading this, go and watch the 4th and 5th episodes (about Taxila) of this wonderful and very important documentary here http://odysseuslahori.blogspot.com/search/label/Documentary and marvel at the beauty of who you were.
Actually, I think this documentary should be mandatory viewing for school students in social studies/ Pakistan studies/ history courses. - At 10 July 2013 at 21:33, said...
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What is left of Taxila? Soe old mounds and a museum. You have breathed life in the place. Loved it Salman. Hadi
- At 11 July 2013 at 09:54, said...
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Salma Mahmud wrote last article for TFT
titled "The Best and the Brightest - Part 1"
I am embedding the URL for it.
It is a shame that Part 2 cannot be written.
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130322&page=16
Also wrote "The grammar of lions"
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130208&page=16 - At 12 July 2013 at 04:41, Unknown said...
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This picture above looks something similar to Mexican Mayan ruins Aztec pyramids.I wonder about the time period of these two civilizations was same or close to each other .
- At 13 July 2013 at 15:26, Salman Rashid said...
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the picture is of the Bhamala stupa, a little ways away from the main cluster of Taxilan ruins. It was built 1st century CE and burnt down by the Huns in about 500 CE. The likeness is purely coincidental. There is no connection between Taxila and any Mayan city.
- At 13 July 2013 at 15:28, Salman Rashid said...
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Haroon, Thank you very much.
Hadi, Taxila is immortal. How can I, in whose spirit the city lives, even attempt to breath life into that great metropolis?
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