Alexander as a general, leader of men and king of Asia When Alexander died, he was not yet thirty-three. He was carried off at the very height of his youthful vigour, like his ancestor and model Achilles.! He had not completed the thirteenth year of his reign. A retrospect of his gigantic life work brings before us a personality of quite unique genius, a marvellous mixture of demonic passion and sober clearness of judgement. In this iron-willed man of action, who was a realist in policy if anyone ever was, beneath the surface lay a nonrational element: for example, his 'longing' for the undiscovered and the mysterious, which, coupled with his will to conque

Alexander young Alexander the Great Alexander was born on the sixth day of the month Hecatombaeon,1 which the Macedonians call Lous, the same day on which the temple of Artemis at Ephesus was burned down. It was this coincidence which inspired Hegesias of Magnesia to utter a joke which was flat enough to have put the fire out: he said it was no wonder the temple of Artemis was destroyed, since the goddess was busy attending to the birth of Alexander. But those of the Magi who were then at Ephesus interpreted the destruction of the temple as the portent of a far greater disaster, and they ran through the city beating their faces and crying out that day had brou

Three anecdotes of Alexanders life and conquests The Battle with Porus Before leaving Nikaia, Alexander had sent messengers to all the Indian princes residing in the lower valley of Cophen to invite them to recognize him as their suzerain and to come to pay him homage. A few of them had answered favourably, notably Taxiles, with whom Alexander already had friendly relations. But many others had refused. Because of this, Alexander was obliged to open a way by force to the Indus. Alexander drove his troops to the border of the Pauravas. Before crossing, he sent a messenger to Porus inviting him to submit himself to his tutelage.1 But Porus was not a

Ancient Greece and Alexander: A brief outline A civilisation appears to have emerged on mainland Greece about 1600 B.C. This came to be known as the Mycenaean civilisation. Feudal1 warrior leaders ruled their districts from hilltop fortresses, the principal fort being Mycenae itself. Minoan Crete exercised a strong influence in these early times; but, as Mycenaean Greece gradually acquired knowledge of the sea, power shifted in its favor. Feared as warriors, large mercenary detachments fought for Crete and Egypt, among other states. The height of Mycenaean expansion and power was reached between 1500 and 1300 B.C. Eventually Crete, the Cyclades, Rhodes, and Cypr

Illumination, Heroism and Harmony Preface The task of preparing teaching-learning material for value-oriented education is enormous. There is, first, the idea that value-oriented education should be exploratory rather than prescriptive, and that the teaching-learning material should provide to the learners a growing experience of exploration. Secondly, it is rightly contended that the proper inspiration to turn to value-orientation is provided by biographies, autobiographical accounts, personal anecdotes, epistles, short poems, stories of humour, stories of human interest, brief passages filled with pregnant meanings, reflective short essays written in well-chiselled

Sri Krishna in Brindavan Published by Shubhra Ketu Foundation and The Mother's Institute of Research This monograph is part of a scries on Value-oriented Education centered on three values : Illumination, Heroism and Harmony. The research, preparation and publication of the monographs that form part of this series arc the result of the work and cooperation of several research teams of the Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Educational Research (SAIIER) at Auroville. General Editor: K1REET JOSHI Author of this monograph: Jyoti Madhok (Compilation of texts

-05_Some incidents of Krsna^s early boyhood.htm II Some incidents of Krsna's early boyhood* Boyhood Pranks of Śrī Krsna (21-28) 21. In course of time, Rāma and Śrī Krsna began to move about together playfully on their knees and hands. 22. They dragged themselves through slushy regions in Vraja to the accompaniment of the tinkling sound of their anklets and girdles. Delighted to hear the sounds themselves, they looked at people passing by for a while, but then withdrew themselves to their mothers, as if out of bash fulness or fear at the sight of strangers. 23. Their mothers, ecstatic with joy, took up the children, whose bodies looked lovely with mud doing duty for unguents. They then a

PART III a ) A selection of poems by some of the mystics and poets of India, on themes related to Sri Krishna and his yoga of divine Love. b ) A selection from Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ' s experiences of Sri Krishna and Radha. c ) A selection from Sri Ramakrishna's experiences of Sri Krishna and Radha. (a) Andal The Vaishnava Poetess Preoccupied from the earliest times with divine knowledge and religious aspiration the Indian mind has turned all forms of human life and emotion and all the phenomena of the universe into symbols and means by which the embodied soul may strive after and grasp the Supreme. Indian devotion h

Part I Exile of Sri Krishna in Brindavan Krishna and companions (Pahari miniature) The Vrajavāsīs arrive in Vrndāvana* Gradually, the caravan of Vrajavāsīs arrived at the beautiful forest of Vrndāvana. They built their residences over a vast area, for the benefit of the cows. The bullock carts were kept so as to make a boundary wall around the entire area, giving it the shape of a half moon. The length of that tract of land was about sixteen miles, and the breadth was eight miles. The newly established village of Vrndāvana was well protected by thorny bushes, branches of

Krishas the incarnation of Vishnu, sitting on the great serpent Shesha Introduction I The Avatara descends on the earth There are debates on the existence of God, and these debates will continue because God, the Invisible, does not oblige the debaters by making himself visible to them. But even among those who have mysteriously seen Him in one form or another, there have been debates whether God, even if Omnipotent, has the capability of incarnation in this physical world. Even those who have heard the stories of Rama and Krishna and Buddha and Christ with astonishment and adoration, and seen in their lives the m