The world isn’t doing so badly after all : While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today, nearly 200 years later, the share has reversed: only 17% of the world population remains illiterate.
In India, Brahmins dominated education for millenia, later supplemented by the Buddhist, Jain, and Islamist institutions of learning. It is no wonder then, that 3 of the seven nobel laureates of Indian origin are Tamil Iyers !
A visitor saw a print of this painting in our Delhi house and asked about it. This is the Bodhisattva - an enlightened being. The paintings in the Ajanta temples started in the second century AD. Their themes were borrowed from stories about previous incarnations of the Buddha and from other ancient literature.
The lines and colours used at Ajanta display a proficiency that was unmatched in the world until the Renaissance in Europe. The Ajanta temples in which these paintings were housed were built from 200 years before Christ to 500 years after..
In India, Brahmins dominated education for millenia, later supplemented by the Buddhist, Jain, and Islamist institutions of learning. It is no wonder then, that 3 of the seven nobel laureates of Indian origin are Tamil Iyers !
The lines and colours used at Ajanta display a proficiency that was unmatched in the world until the Renaissance in Europe. The Ajanta temples in which these paintings were housed were built from 200 years before Christ to 500 years after..
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