academics-from-hungary

"Hermann goes even further: complete forms (e.g. *deiwos) cannot be reconstructed at all, only single sounds, and even these are meant as approximations only, not as phonetically completely correct reconstructions."

"An intriguing point emerges from the find of the term Pippali in the list of agricultural terms in the Saunakiya Atharvaveda by the famous Hungarian Sanskritist Gyula Wojtilla. Considering the importance of such an intense study relating to the agriculture of the later Vedic period, it may be useful to draw attention to the broad conclusions of Wojtillaís study (www.sanskrit.nic.in/SVmarsha/V6/ c3.Pdf) ëagricultural knowledge as it is reflected in the Saunakiya Atharvavedaóa reappraisalí.preponderance of rice cultivation indicated by the terms dhanya, vrihi and sasya and the strong position of barley (yava) production. The unambiguous term for wheat (godhuma) is missing here, but it can be attested in the Paippalada Atharvaveda (IX, 11, 12). ìVerse 5 of hymn II, 4 makes a clear distinction between the forest products and that of ploughing. Special hymns have been recited in order to make agriculture successful (III, 17), to promote the abundance of grain (III, 24), to increase barley (VI, 142). The king of gods, Indra, holds down the furrow and Pcan defends it (III, 17, 4). Indra has a hundred abilities (Aatakritu), is called siripati the master of the plough (VI, 30, 1). Visnuís stride is ëstirred up by ploughingí(X, 5, 34). Hymn XII, 1 extols the earth. Verse 3 and 4 say that the earth is ëon whom food, plowing, came into beingí. According to verse 17 she is ëthe all-producing mother of herbs ....The number of attestations is edifying: dhanya is attested nine times, phala seven times, krisi and tandula six times, ksetra, yava, vrihi and surpa five times, urvara, baja and sira three times, kinasa, khanitrima, khalva, tila, tusa, pippali, bija two times, while the remaining twenty-nine only once. It indicates the established position of agriculture among other economic activities, the preponderance of rice cultivation indicated by the terms dhanya, vrihi and sasya and the strong position of barley (yava) production. The unambiguous term for wheat (godhuma) is missing here, but it can be attested in the Paippalada Atharvaveda (IX, 11, 12) ....the text bears the testimony ofsignificant contemporary changes in agricultural production. The main points of these changes are as follows. New tools such as spade, (abhri), or probably varieties of tools or new names for already known tools appear: sickle (parsu), sieve (pavana, surpa). There are formerly unknown plant names: some of them arenot satisfactorily explained such as abayu, pippali and baja, while other are of great economical importance such as sugar-cane (iksu), cucumber (urvaru), black chick-pea (khalva), sesame (tila) and hemp (sana). There is a full-fledged inventory of the place, implements, products and by-products of rice processing: threshing-floor (khala), sieve (pavana, surpa), grain after threshing and winnowing (tanula) and chaff (tusa)."

"O. Szemerényi admits that reconstructions are used to facilitate comparisons, using one word instead of many IE variants, and cites Hermann’s statement that “complete forms (e.g. *deiwos [=S deva-s]) cannot be reconstructed at all, only single sounds, and even these are meant as approximation only”."

"Kuiper [...] clearly puts it [the word for wheat] in the group of foreign words adopted before the Aryans reached India, [...] there are problems [...]. The trouble begins with the non-attestation of the word in the Rigveda. [...] It is puzzling because this earliest extant text in Sanskrit is supposed to be linked with the earliest Indo-Aryan speakers who entered India. Moreover, the geographical area of the genesis of the Ṛgveda is considered a fertile wheat producing region [...] As a matter of fact, there is abundant archaeological evidence of wheat remains from the Punjab [...] from the period before the invasion of Indo-Aryan speakers."

"Pāṇini, ArthŚā, Bṛsam and Vṛkṣ(s) define the word [for wheat] as a type of grain distinct from barley and rice […] Additionally, NāmaMā makes a curious remark: it is a mlecchabhojya, a food of barbarians‘."

"Assyrian sources preserved the Lullubean word kiurum ‘god’ which can be regarded as an adoption of PII *kura- (cf. OInd sura-, Avestan süra-), the Old Indian and Old Iranian correspondents of which were still applied to denote some gods in Vedic and Avestan times."

"It is well known that wild horses did not exist in India in post-Pleistocene times, in the time of horse domestication. Horse domestication could therefore not be carried out there, and horses reached the Indian subcontinent in an already domesticated form coming from the Inner Asiatic horse domestication centres via the Transcaspian steppes, North- east Iran, South Afghanistan and North Pakistan. The northwestern part of this route is already more or less known; the Afghan and Pakistani part has to be checked in the future. (300)"

"The situation took a new turn, somewhat melodramatically, a few years ago. The material involved had been excavated in Surkotada in 1974 by J. P Joshi, and A. K. Sharma subsequently reported the identification of horse bones from all levels of this site (circa 2100-1700 B.C.E.)... Although some scholars accepted the report, doubts about the exact species of Equus represented by the bones prevented widespread recognition of Sharma's claim...Twenty years later, at the podium during the inauguration of the Indian Archaeological Society's annual meeting, it was announced that Sandor Bokonyi, a Hungarian archaeologist and one of the world's leading horse specialists, who happened to be passing through Delhi after a conference, had verified that the bones were, indeed, of the domesticated Equus caballus... Sharma comments on this validation: This was the saddest day for me as the thought flashed in my mind that my findings had to wait two decades for recognition, until a man from another continent came, examined the material and declared that "Sharma was right." When will we imbibe intellectual courage not to look across borders for approval? The historians are still worse, they feel it is an attempt on the part of the "rightists" to prove that the Aryans did not come to India from outside her boundaries. (30)"

"Thus, the precise identification of equid remains in Surkotada has been conducted by Hungarian expert Prof. Sandor Bokonyi: “The occurrence of true horse (Equus Caballus L.) was evidenced by the enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by the size and form of incisors and phalanges (toe bones).” (quoted by Prof. B.B. Lal from Bokonyi's letter to the Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, 13- 12-1993, in New Light on the Indus Civilization, Aryan Books, Delhi 1998, p.111; Lal took the trouble of quoting Bokonyi precisely because the latter's expertise had falsely been cited in favour of the opposite view, viz. that the horses found were really hemiones.)"

"The evidence concerning horses remains nonetheless the weakest point in the case for an Indian Urheimat. While the evidence is arguably not such that it proves the Harappan culture’s unfamiliarity with horses, it cannot be claimed to prove the identity of Vedic and Harappan culture either, the way the abundance of horse remains in Ukraine is used to prove the IE character of the settlements there. At this point, the centre-piece of the anti-AIT plea is an explainable paucity of the evidence material, so that everything remains possible.... The non-invasionists should recognize the merits in the invasionist skepticism of the horse evidence found in the Harappan cities. It is one thing for Prof. B.B. Lal (one of those healthy doubters who only came to dismiss the “myth of the Aryan invasion” gradually) to cite recent finds of horse bones as proving that “the horse was duly known to the Harappans” and to quote archaeozoologist Prof. Sandor Bokonyi as confirming that the horses found in Surkotada were indeed horses (which some had refused to believe due to their AIT bias), and that “the domestic nature of the Surkotada horses is undoubtful”. It is another to deduce that the horse was simply part of Harappan life rather than an exotic curiosity; AIT defenders have a point when they maintain that the horse was not part of the Harappan lifestyle the way it was in the Kurgan culture. More work is to be done, both in digging and incorrectly interpreting the data."

"Through a thorough study of the equid remains of the protohistoric settlement of Surkotada, Kutch, excavated under the direction of Dr. J. P. Joshi, I can state the following: The occurrence of true horse (Equus Caballus L.) was evidenced by the enamel pattern of the upper and lower cheek and teeth and by the size and form of the incisors and phalanges (toe bones). Since no wild horses lived in India in post-Pleistocene times, the domestic nature of the Surkotada horse is undoubtful. This is also supported by an inter-maxilla fragment whose incisor tooth shows clear signs of crib-biting, a bad habit only existing among domestic horses which are not extensively used for war. (Bökönyi, December 13, 1993) Bökönyi (1997: 300) confirmed his findings: “All in all, the evidence enumerated above undoubtedly raises the possibility of the occurrence of domesticated horses in the mature phase of the Harappa Culture, at the end of the third millennium BC.”"

"The simplest means by which honest men sought to combat the rapid increase of faked hadiths is at the same time a most remarkable phenomenon in the history of literature. With pious intention fabrications were combated with new fabrications, with new hadiths which were smuggled in and in which the invention of illegitimate hadiths were condemned by strong words uttered by the Prophet."

"Some pathogens live exciting double lives, with entirely separate life cycles and be- haviors in different animals."

"At the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging for almost three years. It has cost five million people their lives. The toll of destruction, the human cost, and the economic losses remain to be counted. Few outbreaks in history leave this kind of lasting mark on society: the Plague of Athens (430 BC), the Plague of Galen (165–180 AD), the Plague of Justinian (541–549), the Black Death (1346–1353), the Spanish Flu (1918–1920), and the HIV/AIDS pandemic (1981 onwards) are the most notable exceptions. COVID-19 has now joined the ranks of these sad episodes of human history. Yet humans are not helpless against pandemics. Amidst all the destruction and grief of the COVID-19 pandemic, science has been a bright, shining beacon showing how humanity can prevail against fearful odds."

"The same dynamics that keep us safe in a pack, herd or society, and comfortable in our family, friends or neighbours also serves as a way for pathogenic transmissions. The warmth of a human dwelling or the immense complexity of a bee hive is also an opportunity for a pathogen to tap into a susceptible population. Network interdiction is a comprehensive name for algorithms intended to disrupt such connections."

"To me, agentic AI has always been about large scale emergence and self-organisation. This isn’t a matter of degree but qualitatively different. If you can draw it on a whiteboard, it may well be useful, possibly make decent dinner reservations, but it will not ever exhibit meaningful emergence (if you don’t believe me, try to draw every neuron of a modern convolutional neural network). It may be useful, but it’s not what I mean when I talk about agentic AI."

"At no point am I talking about a notion of what the ‘right’ job is for agents, simulation or action. Rather, I’d like to see both coexist in productive tension, each making the other more effective. The simulation swarms dream of a diverging universe of futures that action agents sample, enact and critique in view of their perception of reality. Like the neighbour’s annoying lawn mower on a Sunday afternoon, those observations filter back into the dreams. Something mostly akin to insight, maybe even wisdom, emerges – of the kind that neither breed of agents with a limited purview could on its own attain."

"Hesiod’s description of Pandora’s box reminds us that though we live in a world of danger, where infectious diseases continue to maim and kill millions, especially across the developing world, we are not without hope. Part of that hope is our ability as humans to bring mathematics, genomics, data science, statistics, and computational science to bear on this problem and call these altogether rather disparate disciplines into humanity’s service against disease. Infectious disease modeling is part of that wider story of hope."

"Computational models of infectious disease can make all the difference in our response to pandemics. As habitat loss and climate change make zoonotic spillover events increasingly more likely, COVID-19 is almost certainly not the last major pan- demic of the 21st century. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that such outbreaks will become increasingly frequent. Computational models can be powerful weapons in our fight against pandemics."

"Somewhere — perhaps in a tropical rainforest, perhaps in the thawing permafrost soil or maybe in one of our own cities — the next pathogen to try humanity’s resilience and resourcefulness is slowly emerging."

"It often takes years to create a viable antibody test as accurate as PCR-based testing. But in less than six weeks, biotech companies—approached by the U.S. government through the White House-created public-private partnership—have already seen their efforts bear fruit. This is a tribute to the incredible creative potential of the biotech sector, but it also shows the power of free enterprise, unshackled by government bureaucracy. It took more than America’s best scientists to rise to the occasion: it took a regulatory regime to let them do so."

"Today, the efforts waged to curb the COVID-19 pandemic may be the first example of a large-scale, global data-driven response to a worldwide crisis, and as such perhaps the first war of data science."

"The small town of Gunnison, Colorado, lies at the bottom of the valley carved by the Gunnison River into the Rocky Mountains. It is now crossed by the Colorado stretch of U.S. Highway 50, but in 1918 the town was mainly supplied by train and two at best mediocre roads. When the 1918–19 influenza pandemic reached Colorado as an unwelcome stowaway on a train carrying servicemen from Montana to Boulder, the town of Gunnison took decisive action. As the November 1, 1918, edition of the Gunnison News-Champion documents, a Dr. Rockefeller from the nearby town of Crested Butte was “given entire charge of both towns and county to enforce a quarantine against all the world”. He instituted a strict reverse quarantine regime that almost entirely isolated Gunnison from the rest of the world. Gunnison became one of the few communities that largely escaped the ravages of the influenza pandemic, at least in the beginning. In an instructive example of the limited human patience for the social, psychological, and economic disruption of quarantine, adherence eventually waned, and the front page of the Gunnison News-Champion’s March 14, 1919, issue reports that the influenza pandemic got to Gunnison, too Nevertheless, Gunnison had a very lucky escape, of a population of over 6900 (including the county), there were only a few cases and a single death."

"We may think of maps and mapping as an objective process, but that would be an illusion. What gets mapped, and more importantly, what does not, is a product of various social, economic, and political phenomena. Quite apart from border disputes and contentious sovereignty, mapping also reflects political priorities. Creating the survey data that can be used in maps is expensive, and large-scale mapping endeavors are typically the preserve of states, whose ability to deliver that data often depends on resources that compete with other governmental priorities. This is true especially in resource-constrained settings."

"Despite the advances of modern medicine, the challenges of global epidemics have only become greater. Habitat loss of viral reservoir species increases the likelihood of zoonotic spillover events. Our global trade and transportation networks enable pathogens to make their way around the world in 24 hours. Climate change is disrupting fragile ecosystems and global poverty, especially urban poverty, exacerbates the problem."

"This is what coding agents are actually good for: not replacing programmers, but replacing the programmer-as-bureaucrat."

"I do think that the future of LLMs is not in the direction of the ‘big’ LLMs that are currently in vogue, but in the direction of smaller, more specialised LLMs that can interact with us, and with each other, in the role-defined and goal-directed agentic manner in which we as humans have interacted for our history."

"The term 'natural immunity' has been often used to express post-infectious immunity and differentiate it from vaccine-induced immunity. In practice, this is not necessarily helpful. There is nothing fundamentally "unnatural" in vaccine-induced immunity, and while the minutiae of natural infection and vaccine-induced immunity might differ, this is a quintessentially unhelpful notion."

"Stein was essentially a geographer and an explorer and is to be admired for his indomitable courage and spirit of adventure in undertaking hazardous journeys through difficult terrain. He discovered a large number of Chalcolithic and related sites in the Great Indian Desert and the entire reach of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, covering Northern and Southern Baluchistan and a good part of Iran. He was a pioneer and a pathfinder and was to Indian protohistoric archaeology what Alexander Cunningham was to Indian historical archaeology."

"Blocks measuring up to sixteen feet in length, with a width and thickness equally imposing, were no convenient materials for the builders of Muhammadan Ziarats, Hammams, etc., who have otherwise done so much to efface the remains of ancient structures in Srinagar."

"A ‘popular tradition [that] recognizes the place where a ferry service is supposed to have crossed the river to Mathula on the opposite bank, a distance of more than 3 miles’—or 5 km, but of course without a drop of water between the two banks! ‘Still more striking, perhaps,’ he continued, ‘is the name of Pattan-munara, the “Minar of the ferry”, borne by an old site in Bahawalpur territory which is similarly believed to mark a ferrying place across the Hakra, the bed of which is here, if anything, still wider.’"

"‘levels between the sand ridges of the Cholistan which unmistakably represent an ancient winding bed of the Sutlej, that once joined the Hakra between Walar and Binjor’."

"The name Martanda, in the form of Mnrtand or Matan, still attaches to the ruins though they have long ago ceaaed to be an object of religious interest. King Kalasa had sought this great fane at the approach of death, and expired at the feet of the sacred image (a.d. 1089). Harsa, his son, respected this temple in the course of the ruthless confiscations to which he subjected the other rich shrines of the country. Subsequently, in Kalhaua's time the great quadrangular courtyard of the temple, with its lofty walls and colonnades, was used as a fortification. The destruction of the sacred image is ascribed to Sikandar Butshikast."

"Describing the Tirtha of Vijayeshvara, Stein gives this detail: The ancient town which once stood in the position indicated, was evidently succeeded by Vijayeshwara, the present Vijbror. The latter place situated less than two miles above Chakradhara, received its name from the ancient shrine of Shiva Vijayeshwara (Vijyesha, Vijayeshana ), the present Vijbror. This deity is worshipped to the present day at Vijbror. The site has evidently from early times been one of the most famous Tirthas of Kashmir. It is mentioned as such in the Rajaratangini and many old Kashmrian texts....The old Linga of Shiva Vijyeshwara seems to have been destroyed by Sikandar Butshikan."

"Close to the foot of the southern extremity of the hill is a rock which has from ancient times received worship as an embodiment of Ganesa... From regard for the pious king the god is said to have then turned his face from west to east so as to behold the new city. ... In fact, if we are to believe Jonariija, the rock-image has changed its position yet a second time. This Chronicler relates that Bhimasvamin from disgust at the iconoclasm of Sikandar Butshikast has finally turned his back on the city."

"On my return to India . . . a survey of any remains of ancient occupations along the dry river-bed of the Ghaggar or Hakra, which passes from the easternmost Panjab through the States of Bikaner and Bahawalpur down to Sind, seemed attractive. Traditional Indian belief recognizes in this well-marked bed the course of the sacred Sarasvatī, once carrying its abundant waters down to the ocean and since antiquity ‘lost’ in desert sands... the Ghaggar was ‘still known as the Sarsuti (the Hindi derivative of Sarasvatī) [which] passes the sacred sites of Kurukshetra near Thanesar, a place of Hindu pilgrimage’... ‘the width of its dry bed within Bikaner territory [that is, downstream of Hanumangarh]; over more than 100 miles [160 km], it is nowhere less than 2 miles [3.2 km] and in places 4 miles [6.4 km] or more’... ‘The large number of these ancient sites contrasts strikingly with the very few small villages still on the same ground.’..."

"‘The identity of the first four rivers here enumerated . . . is subject to no doubt. They correspond to the present Ganges, Jumna, Sarsuti, Sutlej . . . The order in which the first four are mentioned exactly agrees with their geographical sequence from east to west.’"

"In at least three passages of the Rigveda mentioning the Sarasvatī, a river corresponding to the present Sarsuti and Ghaggar is meant. For this we have conclusive evidence in the famous hymn, the ‘Praise of the rivers’ (Nadistuti) which, with a precision unfortunately quite exceptional in Vedic texts, enumerates the Sarasvati correctly between the Yamuna (Jumna) in the east and the Sutudri or Sutlej in the west... ‘of old sites on its banks’ would ‘be helpful to the student of early Indian history, still so much obscured by the want of reliable records and the inadequacy of archaeological evidence.’"

"If the man laughs, change the Order."

"Many disasters can be traced to our linguistic shortcomings. Millions of money and multitudes of men have been sacrificed in order to save the prestige of a mistake in translation committed "by authority.""

"The human mind is extremely limited, and amongst the limits imposed upon it are those of, in early life, connecting an idea, fact, or process, with certain words; and unless two languages, at least, are learnt, and those two are as dissimilar as possible, one is always, more or less, the slave of routine in the perception and in the application of new facts and of new ideas, and in the adaptation of any matter of either theoretical or practical importance. It is great advantage, for linguistic purposes, which are far more practically important than may be generally believed, that the study of Classical languages still holds the foremost place in this country (India); because, however necessary scientific "observation" may be, it cannot take the place of a cultured imagination."

"A good deal of our misconception with regard to the difficulty of the inquiry lies in ourselves that ideas of multitude connected with the peculiar customs of the race that have yet to be ascertained, are at the bottom of the inability of that race to follow our numeration."

"Révész's work encompassed varied fields. His early interest centered on visual perception, and later he concerned himself with the psychological aspects of music. He carried out tests on the sense of touch, and identified those elements of tactile perception that are not shared by the optic and acoustic senses. This research brought him in contact with blind persons, and Revesz, in part moved by sympathy, conducted studies on the personal life of the blind. He also devoted himself to understanding the basic differences between humans and animals, in which connection he produced his study on the origins of languages."

"Ebbinghaus: Language is a system of conventional signs that can be voluntarily produced at any time."

"Three of the pioneers of European psychology, who became linked in friendship at the beginning of the century at G. E. Muller's Laboratory have died the last two years: David Katz..., ... and now Géza Révész... Revesz had to leave his native Hungary, at the time of Horthy's coup de force in 1919, and, having become a Dutch citizen and professor at the University of Amsterdam, he too founded a Psychological Institute — probably the largest in Europe, with its forty rooms and an auditorium — which, just before his death, he had left on becoming emeritus."

"A theory of haptics is expounded which the author feels will establish "a foundation for the Haptics of form and the psychology of the blind." He differentiates between "Haptics of an essentially optical character" and "pure or autonomous Haptics" such as is experienced by those blind from early childhood. The weaknesses of certain psychological theories such as Gestalt, are discussed in terms of Révész's haptic theory. Part II of the book analyzes the aesthetics of haptic form and the art of the blind. The work of blind sculptors is presented and is analyzed."

"For professional musicians, musicologists, and serious students, knowledge of the psychology of music is extremely valuable but sometimes hard to come by. In this practical and authoritative study which pulls together information from musicology, physics, physiology, psychology, and aesthetics the distinguished Hungarian psychologist Geza Revesz (1878 1955) offers a comprehensive view of the subject, including an overview of his own extensive, often revolutionary research in both music psychology and acoustics."

"Ethics requires the kind of personal reflection, in the end, that no one else can do decisively for any individual."

"If one behaved as a good citizen or a charitable person simply because one was dreadfully scared of the state placing one in jail, one would not be a good citizen or person but barely more than a circus animal."

"If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality."