Category Social Sciences

Who was Gautama Buddha?

          The word Buddha literally means ‘The Enlightened One’. This was the title given to Siddhartha Gautama. He became the founder of the religion called Buddhism.

          Buddha was born as a prince in the 6th century B.C. in a warrior community of Nepal called ‘Sakyas’. Although brought up in great luxury, he did not show any attachment to the material delights. Even when young, he had a sensitive and philosophical temperament. Though he had everything necessary for worldly pleasures, he was somehow dissatisfied.

          One day Siddhartha went out of his palace grounds on his chariot to get a glimpse of the town. On his way he saw three, sights which he had never seen before: a sick man, an old man and a dead man. These had a deep impact on his mind and made him sad and thoughtful. He could sense the eternal truths of life and realized that life was full of sorrows and suffering. He wondered if sickness, old age and death ultimately grab everyone’s life then what was the goal of life and how men could best use the comparatively short lives they had on this earth. These questions kept on hunting his mind.

          One night Siddhartha left his palace in the pursuit of his goal. He was then 29 years old, married and father to a son. He left behind his wife and infant son in the palace. He spent several years studying under various teachers, but none could impart him the wisdom he was searching for. Finally, travelling from one place to another he reached a place in North India, now called Bodh Gaya. There he sat for many days under a tree in deep meditation, until suddenly one morning he had a wonderful experience of a starting vision of what he had been seeking. The light that shone in him was the enlightenment he was searching for. Buddha delivered his first sermon at Benares on the banks of river Ganges.

          Gautama Buddha died at the age of 80 at Kushinagar, near Benares. After him, his followers were divided into two sects: Mahayana and Hinayana. Buddhism is now followed in Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan.

 

Why Egypt is called the Gift of the Nile?

            The river Nile is the longest river of Africa and is considered the life breath of Egypt and Sudan. It is 6648 kms long and runs from the mountains of Tanganayike to the Mediterranean Sea through Africa.

            Egypt is called the Gift of the Nile because its valley is extremely fertile mainly due to the yearly floods and it was this fertility that made its ancient people prosperous and helped them survive calamities. Their ancient religion was based on the Nile, and the lives of the ancient Egyptians center around the river. Here once thrived one of the oldest civilizations in the world going back to more than 5000 years B.C.

            The headwater lakes — Victoria, Albert and Edward, are in the tropical country, south of the equator. Most of the rain there falls during the winter months. The great lakes hold this water and feed it into the Nile gradually during the entire year.

            The Blue Nile and Atbara are the river that mainly cause floods and the humus and mud are distributed by the flood waters along the banks of the lower Nile. So the land there remains a green oasis which would have been a desert otherwise.

            The immense importance of the Nile for Egypt is obvious from the fact that 95% of its population lives along its bank on less than one-thirtieth of Egypt’s land. After the construction of Aswan dam, the Nile serves Egypt in a much bigger way. The dam regulates the flood waters, generates hydroelectric power and irrigates thousands of acres of formerly unproductive land.

            The true source of the Nile is in the mountains of the Congo whence the Kangera flows to Lake Victoria. The river Sebat and others flow into the Nile and increase its volume considerably. From this point onwards it is called the White Nile. The Blue Nile is the longest tributary of the Nile and has its source in Ethiopia like Lake Tana. At Khartoum the Blue and White Nile come together. There are six un-navigable cataracts between this place and the sea. In Sudan the cataracts are used to produce an enormous quantity of electricity. They are circumnavigated by waterways. The two very big dams built on the Nile, and the cataracts supply a large part of Egypt’s electric power. 

Where is the highest railway line in the world?

Railway is one of the most important means of transportation today. Everyday thousands of trains travel on railway tracks throughout the world. While some carry passengers, others carry grain, coal, machinery and many other products. The fastest trains reach a speed of over 200 km/hr.

The highest railway line in the world is in Peru. It is a track on the Morococha branch of the Peruvian State Railways at La Cima at a height of 4,818 m (15,806 ft.) above the sea-level.

The highest railway station in the world is the Condor station in Bolivia at a height of 4, 786 m (15,705 ft.) The world’s longest run railway track is one of 9,438 km (5,864 miles) on the trans-Siberian line from Moscow to Nakhodka, Russia. The highest speed recorded on any National rail system is 515 km per hour by the French high-speed train TGV on 18th May 1990.

 

 

How was the Grand Canyon formed?

The Grand Canyon in Arizona USA is a natural wonder of the world. It is famous around the world for its colourful rocks and majestic spectacle. At certain points, it appears like a magic city of rocks, with temples, towers and castles of dazzling colours all around. Do you know how this great wonder came to be formed?

          The Grand Canyon was formed by erosion of the Colorado River Valley. The mighty force of waters of Colorado River cut out this great gorge in the course of many thousand years. Even now, year by year, the rushing Colorado continues to cut deeper into the bottom of the gorge. This is the deepest gorge anywhere in land.

          The Grand Canyon is about 347.2 kilometres long, upto 20 km. wide and the depth is as much as 2 km at places.

          For years, the Colorado River has slowly cut through the high plateaus of northern Arizona, exposing strata that are millions of years old. These strata are of great interest to geologists because they offer an insight into a long stretch of earth’s history.

          At the bottom of the Canyon, where the Colorado River flows, is an ancient Precambrian rock that contains fossils of primitive algae. The fossils of dinosaurs, elephants, trees and other lives of those times are found in the higher strata. The most recent rocks occur near or at the top of the Canyon. The chains of links of its fossils provide an idea about the evolutionary process.

          Each year, more than 2 million tourists visit the Grand Canyon to wonder at the marvel. In 1919, the United States Government created the Grand Canyon National Park, thus preserving the wealth of the plant and animal life that has become a part of this unique environment. 

What is the International Date Line?

            The International Date Line is an imaginary line extending from the North Pole to the South Pole. It passes through the Pacific Ocean where, according to an international agreement, the date changes. As the Earth rotates, each day begins and ends on this line. 

            The date line is a consequence of the worldwide use of time-keeping systems arranged in such a manner that the local noon corresponds approximately to the time at which the Sun crosses the local meridian of longitude. The line is necessary because the Earth is divided longitudinally into 24 one-hour tie zones (15 degrees longitude each) which make one full day on Earth. Since Earth rotates eastward, the time on the clock progresses westward round the world. Thus 12 O’clock noon occurs in London (0 degree longitude) five hours before it does in Washington D.C. (75 degrees west of London), and eight hours before at San Francisco (120 degrees west of London). So, when it is noon in London, it is midnight at the place 180 degrees to the west.

            On either side of the 180th meridian, the time is the same. Let us take the example of a traveller going completely around the Earth, carrying a clock that he advanced or retarded by one hour whenever he entered a new time zone, and a calendar that he advanced by one day whenever his clock indicated midnight. When he returns to his starting point he would find that the date according to his calculations was different by one day from the date kept by persons who had remained at the starting point. That’s why a traveller moving eastward across the line sets his calendar back by one day than the one travelling westward. It has a strange effect. That means if you cross the date line going eastward, you gain a day while those travelling westward lose a day.

            The date line, however, has some variations from the 180th meridian to allow for land areas or islands. The line bulges eastward through the Bering Strait to take in eastern Siberia and then westward to include the Aleutian Islands with Alaska. South of the equator, it bulges eastwards again to allow various island groups to have the same day as that of New Zealand.

 

How were the beings in the Zapotec religion and legends alike?

The Zapotec religion was polytheistic, that is, they believed in multiple gods and goddesses differentiated only by their costumes.

Gods were depicted wearing clothes with or without capes, while goddesses were depicted wearing skirts. Many of the gods were associated with fertility and agriculture.

Some popular deities were Cocijo, Coquihani, and Pitao etc. They associated life to inanimate objects too.

There are several legends about the origin of the Zapotec. One of them is that they were descended from big cats like pumas, jaguars, and ocelots. They believed themselves to be the original people of the valley of Oaxaca. They assumed themselves to be born from rocks.

The Zapotec believed that they were the descendants of super-natural beings, living among the clouds and believed that they would return to the clouds after their death. It is due to this very belief, the Zapotecs are also known as the cloud people.