This blog is about the entrants in the year 1960, to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ceylon, Colombo. The email address for communications is, 1960batch@gmail.com. Please BOOKMARK this page for easier access later.Photo is the entrance porch of the old General Hospital, Colombo, still in existence. Please use the search box below to look for your requirement.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Two songs
Latha
Manjreshkar live. Lovely song.
Paul Anka. Back to 1960s.
With it.
Begins ‘ I am so young and you are so….’
Don’t miss.
jksw
Something Surprising -India the roots of civilisation!.
Wonderful piece of history, with a message from the dim distant
past. India the roots of civilisation!.
Subject: Something Surprising. Please read.
.
Something Surprising
'His Masters Voice' (HMV) had once
published a pamphlet giving the history of gramophone record. The Gramophone
was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in the 19th century. Edison, who had
invented many other gadgets like electric light and the motion picture
camera, had become a legend even in his own time.
When he invented the gramophone record,
which could record human voice for posterity, he wanted to record the voice
of an eminent scholar on his first piece.
For that he chose Prof. Max Muller of
England (a German by ethnicity), another great personality of the 19th
century.
He wrote to Max Muller saying, "I
want to meet you and record your voice. When should I come?”
Max Muller who had great respect for
Edison asked him to come on a suitable time when most of the scholars of the
Europe would be gathering in England.
Accordingly, Edison sailed to England
and participated in a symposium of scholars. He was introduced to the
audience, and was cheered by all present.
At the request of Edison, Max Muller
came on the stage and spoke in front of the instrument. Then Edison went back
to his laboratory and by afternoon came back with a disc & played it on
the gramophone.
The audience was thrilled to hear the
voice of Max Muller from the instrument. They were glad that voices of great
persons like Max Muller could be stored for the benefit of posterity.
After several rounds of applause and
congratulations to Thomas Edison, Max Muller came to the stage and addressed
the scholars and asked them, "You heard my original voice in the
morning. Then you heard the same voice coming out from this instrument in the
afternoon. Do you understand what I said in the morning or what you heard in
the afternoon?”
The audience fell silent because they
could not understand the language in which Max Muller had spoken. It
was ‘Greek and Latin’ to them as they say. But had it been Greek or Latin,
they would have definitely understood because they were from various parts of
Europe. It was in a language which the European scholars had never heard.
Max Muller then explained what he had
spoken. He said that the language he spoke was Sanskrit and it was the first
sloka of the Rig Veda which says "Agni Meele Purohitam”
This was the first recorded public
version on a gramophone plate.
Why did Max Muller choose this?
Addressing the audience he said,
“Vedas are the oldest text of the human
race. And “Agni Meele Purohitam” is the first verse of Rig Veda. In the most
primordial time, when the people did not know how even to cover their bodies
and lived by hunting and housed in caves, Indians had attained high
civilization and they gave the world universal philosophies in the form of
the Vedas”
When “Agni Meele Purohitam” was
replayed, the entire audience stood up in silence as a mark of respect.
The verse means :
"Oh Agni, You who gleam in the darkness, to You we come day by day, with devotion and bearing homage. So be of easy access to us, Agni, as a father to his son, abide with us for our well being." |
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