People From London

"Prof. Arthur Basham (d. 1986), the leading authority on ancient Indian culture and Oriental civilizations, writes about ancient Indian codes of war that ‘In all her history of warfare, Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants. The ghastly sadism of the kings of Assyria, who flayed their captives alive, is completely without parallel in ancient India. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity.’"

"In A Cultural History of India, A.L. Basham notes that “[by] the fifth century CE, Indianised states, that is to say states organised along the traditional lines of Indian political theory and following the Buddhist or Hindu religions, had established themselves in many regions of Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, Malaysia, and Indonesia”."

"Direct testimony to the assumed fact is lacking, and no tradition of an early home beyond the frontier survives in India."

"The capitals of Asoka's columns, some of which were perhaps made before his reign, are the earliest important sculptures after those of the Indus cities."

"The famous lions of the Sarnath column and the less famous but more beautiful bull of the column of Rampurva are the work of realistic sculptors, owing something to Iranian and Hellenist tradition... Yet, if we did not know that the possibility of Western influence existed , we might suggest that the animal sculptures of the columns were those of a school directly de- scended from the engravers of the Indus seals , which show a realistic treatment very unusual for so early a civilization."

"Medieval Indian mathematicians, such as Brahmagupta (7th century), Mahavira (9th century) and Bhüskara (19th century), made several discoveries which in Europe were not known until the Renaissance or later, They understood the import of positive and negative quantities, evolved sound systems of extracting square and cube roots, and could solve quadratic and certain types of indeterminate equations."

"Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini's grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world."

"Gentlemen, I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec tomorrow."

"Now God be praised, I die contented."

"Being a vegan, caring about animals … all this compassion in my lifestyle is the reward in and of itself."

"I do not dwell in the country, nor am I acquainted with the plough, but I think that whosoever doth not maintain the plough destroys the kingdom ... Excepting Sir Thomas More's Utopia...you shall never find but the ploughman is chiefly provided for."

"As far as a compassionate lifestyle and [it being] healthy for me, for the planet and all the life on it, vegan is really the best way to go. It helps me a lot. I really believe that I'm doing something good for me and for everyone else every time I eat, you know."

"I promised the youth that they would have a voice through me. We must encourage our youth, listen to them and help them to resolve youth issues. After all, they are our future. Guess what—not all youth are yobs, and not all yobs are youth. Furthermore, youths are victims of antisocial behaviour, more than any other group in our society. I will campaign and lobby extremely hard for my constituents in Brent, South to further their concerns and to put forward the case for social justice in Brent, South, the UK and worldwide."

"I believe that Brent, South is a shining example of integration at its best. Brent, South deserves a chance to prosper, a chance to benefit from opportunities and a chance for my constituents to live independently."

"I am proud to represent the Labour party, which established the minimum wage, which some Opposition parties could not find time to support."

"I am proud to represent the Labour party, which has pledged to end the equal pay gap. My constituency has more women living in it than men—52 per cent.—and equal pay has a direct effect on economic stability and business prosperity, and a direct correlation with child poverty. If we are serious about tackling those issues, the gap must be closed, and soon. I am confident that I will be working hard with my Government to ensure that that will be achieved."

"This is modern, progressive politics reflecting our society."

"I am proud to be a GMB member and a former officer. I strive to ensure that my contributions continue to aid the historic constructive working relations between the Labour party and the trade union movement. The Warwick agreement, which was referred to in our manifesto, is another historic agreement which only the Labour party could achieve."

"We must finally see an end to cruel and inhumane conversion therapies, which have been allowed to spread fear and hatred in our society for far too long."

"There was one incident when I wore plain fishnets to parliament. I received so many overly sexual, misogynistic comments that I took the tights off and threw them in the bin and never wore fishnets again. I spoke to a more senior female MP. She told me to ignore it saying, ‘it’s all banter’. She told equivalent stories women MPs have been through. There were lots of stories of MPs looking up their skirt. The parliamentary environment needs to change."

"The good thing is now post-Me Too movement, we are not putting up with it. Some of the men have not moved forward. They still think it is acceptable to be sexist and misogynistic. When I was a whip, an MP was talking about me having a real whip in the tea room in parliament. It happened more than once. It became very uncomfortable and embarrassing for me. Parliament was designed for men only and there is still that prevailing attitude that this is a man’s place and the women are just window dressing and there is that entitlement to belittle women."

"In the United States, ... there prevails a simple faith that the formulae of the democratic state will solve all the social problems of humanity, even though their application be limited and hindered by an autocratic economic order."

"It is disgracefully true that the organizations that have embodied the teachings of the Jewish and Christian scriptures have at times taught contentment with injustice and inequality, have urged the people to endure their lot in submission, have at times allied themselves with the forces of repression. But the spirit and ideal of their faith has ever broken through the forms that confined and distorted it."

"Cunningham had personally visited Malwa during 1874 AD as well as 1876 AD. This is what he had to write in Volume X of the ASI Report: Inside the town there is a stone masjid called Bijay Mandir, or the temple of Bijay. This Hindu name is said to have been derived from the founder of the original temple, Bijay Rani. The temple was thrown down by the order of A urangzeb, and the present masjid erected in its place; but the Hindus still frequent it at the time of the annual fair. By the Muhammadans it is called the Alamgiri masjid, while Bhilsa (earlier name ofVidisha) itself is called Alamgirpur. The building is 78'hfeet long by 26'h feet broad, and the roof is supported. on four rows of plain square pillars with 13 openings to the front."

"The most sacred and eastern source of the Sarasvatī is said to be Adi-Badri Kunda north of Katgadh [Kathgarh], while the latter is still remembered to be the place where the sacred stream came out of the hills."

"This mosque, called Adhai Din Ka Jhopra, is a ready object of shuddhi or purification to again becoming a temple. Certainly that is what Cunninghum2 3 implied. In the ASI report written by him in 1864-65, he found it difficult to follow some parts of the plan of the Quwwatul Islam mosque at Delhi, but nearly every part of the plan of the Ajmer mosque is still traceable, so that the original design of the architect can be restored without much difficulty. Externally it is a square of 259 feet each side, with four peculiar star-shaped towers at the corners. There are only two entrances, one to the east and the other to the south, -the north side being built against the scarped rock of the hill. The interior consists of a quadrangle 200 feet by 17 5 feet, surrounded on all four sides by cloisters of Hindu pillars. The mosque itself, which forms the western side of the quadrangle, is 259 feet long by 57'hfeet broad, including the great screen wall, which is no less than 1 1/2 feet thick and 56 feet high ."

"Muhammad Ghauri presumably offered prayers within the stipulated two and a half days. Subsequently in about 1200 AD the Adhai Din Ka Jhopra was completed with a well-carved facade which is best described in the words of the ASI Report25 for 1893: The whole of the exterior is covered up with a network of tracery so finely and delicately wrought that it can only be compared to a fine lace. Cunningham described the exterior of the Jhopra even more eloquently: For gorgeous prodigality of ornament, beautiful richness of tracery, delicate sharpness of finish, laborious accuracy of workmanship, endless variety of detail, all of which are due to the Hindu masons, this building may justly vie with the noblest buildings which the world has yet produced."

"The occurrence of the name of Rambagh at so great a distance to the west of the Indus, and at so early a period as the time of Alexander, is very interesting and important, as it shows not only the wide extension of Hindu influence in ancient times, but also the great antiquity of the story of Rama. It is highly improbable that such a name, with its attendant pilgrimages, could have been imposed on the place after the decay of Hindu influence. During the flourishing period of Buddhism many of the provinces to the west of the Indus adopted the Indian religion, which must have had a powerful influence on the manners and language of the people. But the expedition of Alexander preceded the extension of Buddhism, and I can therefore only attribute the old name of Rambakia to a period anterior to Darius Hystaspes.”"

"Much difficulty has been felt regarding the postoion of Fa-Hian’s '"great kingdom of Shachi " and of Hwen Thsang's Vis&kha, with its enormous number of heretics or Brahmanists; but I hope to show in the most satisfactory manner that these two places are identical, and that they are also the same as the faketa and Ajudhya of the Brahmans."

"I have now to show that Fa-Hian’s Sha chi is the same as Hwen Thsang's Vis&kha, and that both are identical with Saketa or Ajttdhya."

"“In the bed of this river there are several jets of liquid mud, which, from time immemorial, have been known as Ram-Chandar ki-kup, or “Ram Chandar’s wells.” There are also two natural caves, one dedicated to Kali, and the other to Hingulaj, or Hingula Devi, that is, the ‘Red Goddess’, who is only another form of Kali. But the principal objects of pilgrimage in the Aghor valley are connected with the history of Rama. The pilgrims assemble at the Rãmbãgi, because Rama and Sita are said to have started from this point, and proceed to the Gorakh Tank, where Rama halted; and thence to Tongabhera, and on to the point where Rama was obliged to turn back in his attempt to reach Hingulaj with an army. Rãmbagh I would identify with the Rambakia of Arrian, and Tongabhera with the river Tonberos of Pliny, and the Tomerus of Arrian. At Rambakia, therefore, we must look for the site of the city founded by Alexander, which Leonatus was left behind to complete. It seems probable that this is the city which is described by Stephanus of Byzantium as the “sixteenth Alexandria, near the bay of Mo Nearchus places the western boundary of the Oritse at a place called Malaria, which I take to be the bay of Malan, to the east of Rãs Mãlãn, or Cape Mãlãn of the present day, about twenty miles to the west of the Aghor river. Both Curtius and Diodorus mention the foundation of this city, but they do not give its name. Diodorus, however, adds that it was built on a very favourable site near the sea, but above the reach of the highest tides."

"In the very heart of the city (Ayodhya) stands the Janam Asthan, or 'Birth-place temple' of Rama""

".. Nothing can be more complete than this proof. There were only two places at which Buddha resided for any length of time, namely, Sravasti, at which he lived either 9 or 19 years, and Saketa, at which he lived either 6 or 16 years; and as according to Hwen Thsang he lived for 6 years at VJsakha, which is described as being at some distance to the south of Sravasti, it follows of necessity that Visakha and Saketa were one and the same place."

"As Mahoba was for some time the headquarters of the early Muhammadan Governors, we could hardly expect to find that any Hindu buildings had escaped their furious bigotry, or their equally destructive cupidity. When the destruction of a Hindu temple furnished the destroyer with the ready means of building a house for himself on earth, as well as in heaven, it is perhaps wonderful that so many temples should still be standing in different parts of the country. It must be admitted, however, that, in none of the cities which the early Muhammadans occupied permanently, have they left a single temple standing, save this solitary temple at Mahoba, which doubtless owed its preservation solely to its secure position amid the deep waters of the Madan-Sagar. In Delhi, and Mathura, in Banaras and Jonpur, in Narwar and Ajmer, every single temple was destroyed by their bigotry, but thanks to their cupidity, most of the beautiful Hindu pillars were preserved, and many of them, perhaps, on their original positions, to form new colonnades for the masjids and tombs of the conquerors. In Mahoba all the other temples were utterly destroyed and the only Hindu building now standing is part of the palace of Parmal, or Paramarddi Deva, on the hill-fort, which has been converted into a masjid. In 1843, I found an inscription of Paramarddi Deva built upside down in the wall of the fort just outside this masjid. It is dated in S. 1240, or A.D. 1183, only one year before the capture of Mahoba by Prithvi-Raj Chohan of Delhi. In the Dargah of Pir Mubarak Shah, and the adjacent Musalman burial-ground, I counted 310 Hindu pillars of granite. I found a black stone bull lying beside the road, and the argha of a lingam fixed as a water-spout in the terrace of the Dargah. These last must have belonged to a temple of Siva, which was probably built in the reign of Kirtti Varmma, between 1065 and 1085 A.D., as I discovered an inscription of that prince built into the wall of one of the tombs."

"The identity of Saketa and Ayodhya has, I believe, always been admitted ; but I am not aware that any proof has yet been offered to establish the fact. Csomade Kords, 2 in speaking of the place, merely says ‘‘Saketana or Ayodhya, and H. H. Wilson, in his Sanskrit Dictionary, calls Saketa "the city Ayodhya." But the question would appear to be set at rest by several passages of the ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Raghuvansa/ 3 in which Saketanagara is generally called the capital of Raja Dasaratha and his sons. But the following verse of the ‘Ram¬ ayana,’ which was pointed out to me by a Brahman of Lucknow, will be sufficient to establish the identity."

"Inside the town there is a stone masJid called Bijay Mandir, or the temple of Bijay. This Hindu name is said to have been derived from the founder of the original temple, Bijay Rani. The temple was thrown down by the order of Aurangzeb, and the present masjid erected in its place; but the Hindus still frequent it at the time of the annual fair. By the Muhammadans it is called the Alamgiri masjid, while Bhilsa (earlier name of Vidisha) itsef is called Alamgirpur. The building is 78 1/2 feet long bye 26 1/2 feet broad, and the roof is supported on four rows of Plain square pillars with 13 openings to the front."

"At the north end of the Assi-khamba Masjid, there is a small tomb of Sayid Yahia of Mashad, under a nim tree. As he is the reputed recoverer of the fort of Mahaban from the Hindus, I presume that he must have destroyed the temple and built a mosque in its place. Mr. Growse places this event in the reign of Ala-ud-din, or A.H. 695 to 715."

"I was really shocked by the statement of Mr Dacre the other day, that his editorial policy is driven by commercial interests. I think that is about the most unethical thing I've read for a long time and, what's more, from the most surprising source, as I have great respect for his abilities. Indeed, many years ago when he was editor of the Evening Standard, he agreed to leave then and come and edit the Times and I was extremely pleased and Associated quickly made him editor of the Daily Mail, I have no doubt at a vastly increased salary, where some friends of mine may disagree with this strongly, but I think he's been a great success. But I was shocked when he said that his policies now, the editorial policy of the Mail is driven by commercial interests. That's on a record here somewhere."

"The real enemy, if you like, is within. For the regrettable truth is that, increasingly, considerable sections of Britain’s media conspire to undermine mass-circulation newspapers. So tonight I would like to pose the question: why is the British newspaper industry so full of self-loathing? I have commented before on of what I have dubbed the "subsidariat" – those media outlets who cannot connect with enough readers to be commercially viable, and whose views and journalism are only sustained by huge cross-subsidy from profitable parts of their owners’ empires or by tax payers’ money. Fair enough. There is a case for subsidy though the longer I live the more I come round to the view that – in most cases - it ultimately perverts everything it touches. In the media, it produces a distorting prism, actually incentivising its recipients to operate in splendid isolationism, far removed from the real world that the great majority of readers and listeners have to live in. But my question is why does not a day go by that the subsidariat papers – blissfully oblivious of their own pocket-sized shapes and circulations – don’t carry the obligatory sneer at the tabloid press? Why does not half an hour go by that the high priests of the subsidariat, the BBC, can’t resist a snide reference to the popular press, again blissfully oblivious that all too often they are following agendas set by those very popular newspapers whose readers pay their salaries. Why does not a week go by that the media supplements and their columnists do not denigrate our industry as a whole?"

"Let it be said loud and clear that the Mail, unlike News International, did NOT hack people's phones or pay the police for stories. I have sworn that on oath. No, our crime is more heinous than that. It is that the Mail constantly dares to stand up to the liberal-left consensus that dominates so many areas of British life and instead represents the views of the ordinary people who are our readers and who don't have a voice in today's political landscape and are too often ignored by today's ruling elite. ... The truth is that there is an unpleasant intellectual snobbery about the Mail in leftish circles, for whom the word 'suburban' is an obscenity. They simply cannot comprehend how a paper that opposes the mindset they hold dear can be so successful and so loved by its millions of readers. Well, I'm proud that the Mail stands up for those readers."

"Back in the business of journalism, there are no short cuts to producing a great newspaper. You need one vital ingredient: a great editor. If you've got one, you will succeed; if not, you will fail. That's why Paul Dacre is worth considerably more than a million pounds a year."

"[W]hat moves me most are the countless messages from readers worried about whether the Mail will continue its support for EU withdrawal. My answer to them — and others — is unequivocal. Support for Brexit is in the DNA of both the Daily Mail and, more pertinently, its readers. Any move to reverse this would be editorial and commercial suicide."

"For my part, I plead guilty to having tweaked, in my time, the Remainer nose of the otherwise admirable FT but your writer’s ludicrous caricature of the Mail, before I stepped aside at 70 after 26 years in the chair, is unrecognisable from the paper that in those years increased its circulation by nearly a million in a contracting market and made billions in profits. ... It also — with the selfless efforts of the magnificent team of journalists Lord Rothermere allowed me to put together — won an unprecedented number of awards for the quality of its journalism and its countless great campaigns whether launching the war on plastic, cleaning up Britain, Alzheimer’s awareness, dignity for the elderly or justice for [the murdered teenager] Stephen Lawrence. ... As for Mr Greig, I congratulate him for making a solid start as editor and continuing so many of those campaigns but I’m sure he’ll forgive me for suggesting that he (or his PR) defers his next lunch with the FT until he has notched up a small fraction of those journalists' achievements."

"Dacre, the nation's bully-in-chief is, like all bullies, a coward: he refused to go on the Today programme yesterday to argue his case. He never dares face his critics, happy to fry alive all and sundry, never apologising, never explaining. There is a good reason for this: the stance his paper takes on just about everything is so internally contradictory and inconsistent that he could never survive even minimal scrutiny. The Mails mishmash of lurid scandal, bitching about women and random moralising zigzags all over the place, dishing out pain and praise often according to who it has succeeded in buying with its limitless chequebook, or who has infuriated it by selling their wares to another bidder."

"It is nearly three years since the Mails headline "Enemies of the people" detonated a national debate over whether judges were hijacking political powers. Written five minutes before deadline, this somewhat clunky reference to an Ibsen play was meant to capture Brexit ministers’ rage at the court’s ‘undemocratic’ decision to insist parliament must vote on triggering Article 50. Interestingly, the Telegraph’s front page that day, "The judges versus the people", was almost identical, but it was the Mail, the chatterati’s favourite bogeyman, that was criticised. Was this fair? ... That "Enemies" front page, which reflected the view of ministers and a great many Britons, was excoriated by the same liberals. So do I regret it? Hell no! Newspapers are meant to be provocative, outrageous even. Striking the right balance between the law and politics is never going to be easy. If that front page helped raise consciousness about this vital debate, then I can face my maker with equanimity."

"Saudi Arabia's addiction to the blood cult of public execution demeans and humiliates not only the victims, but all those who participate in the process and Saudi society as a whole."

"The time has come to offer our thanks to one of the best Presidents this Union has had for a long time. The enormous amount of work he has done, the countless committees he has headed, the energy he has contributed to the general running of the Union have all undoubtedly improved the welfare of the Leeds student."

"No one should be fooled into believing that Saudi Arabia is striving towards a more open and pluralistic form of government. ... The very opposite is true, what we are witnessing is a that is tightening its grip on the social fabric of society, choking all forms of open debate, suffocating civil society, silencing the voice of reform and imprisoning those who are striving towards modernity."

"The House of Saud knows full well that it cannot survive the forces of change, that it cannot withstand the inevitable tide of history and that it will in due course be swept away as the clamour for governmental transparency and social justice grows."

"[I]ts patronising, right-on, sanctimonious political correctness gets me so angry it would give me the energy and the willpower to get off that island"