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Ram:
Thanks. Well that settled one
mystery.
What about Hockey?
RB
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 11:35
AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] EVEREST HISTORY time
line
Barua,
About Polo, here is a short history. It says it originated in China.
While other links say it did in Persia, or India.
But it does look like the British tea planters codified and set the rules
of modern Polo in India.
Its an interesting look into the 2000 year old history of Polo.
--Ram
On 5/16/06, Rajen
Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>So, what does this tell
us? I tells me that, even though many countries did enjoy sports, in
today's context our modern sports have basically come from >Greece/Europe
etc. That is - the Western idea of sports is dominant.
You are right. It tells
that the Western idea of Greek sports continued in the West till now. In
countries like India it did not. Looking at present performance, in
China it might have continued to some extent. I am intterested to
find why and when it
discontinued in India. We can say the mental games continued in India:
Chess, Cards, Ludu, Paxa, Kouri etc
But for games like Polo. I
don't think we find any reference of this game being played even during
Ramayana or Mahabharata days. re? There are references of
wresting etc though.
RB
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 8:44
AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] EVEREST HISTORY
time line
Dear Barua,
>Unlike India, ancient
China was comparable to Greece in sports ;
>See article
below:
The article you sent is
impressive. But look at this one - which also refers to ancient India and
Greece and sports. Highlights mine and there are a many more articles
on the subject.
So, what does this tell
us? I tells me that, even though many countries did enjoy sports, in
today's context our modern sports have basically come from Greece/Europe
etc. That is - the Western idea of sports is dominant.
--Ram
| The history of sports in India dates back
to the Vedic era. Physical culture in ancient India was fed by a
powerful fuel--religious rites. There were some well-defined values
like the mantra in the Atharva-Veda, saying," Duty is in
my right hand and the fruits of victory in my left". In terms of an
ideal, these words hold the same sentiments as the traditional Olympic
oath: ".......For the Honour of my Country and the Glory of Sport."
The founders of the Olympic idea had India very much in mind when they
were deciding on the various disciplines. There is a
fascinating link between Greece and India which stretches back to 975
B.C. The zest for chariot-racing and wrestling was common to both the
countries.
![Sports]() In
India, dehvada or the body-way is defined as "one of the ways
to full realisation." In the day and age of the Rig-Veda, Ramayana
and Mahabharata men of stature and circumstance were
expected to be competent in chariot-racing, archery, horsemanship,
military tactics, wrestling, weight-lifting, swimming and
hunting
The guru-shishya
(teacher-pupil) relationship has always been an integral part of
Indian sport from time immemorial. Indian sport reached a peak of
excellence when Buddhism held sway here. In Villas Mani Majra ,
Tiruvedacharya describes many fascinating games, namely, archery,
equitation, hammer-throwing and chariot-racing. In Manas
Olhas (1135 A.D.), Someshwar writes about bhrashram
(weight-lifting), bhramanshram (walking) and also about
Mall-Stambha (wrestling).
It is more than likely that many of today's Olympic
disciplines are sophisticated versions of the games of strength and
speed that flourished in ancient India and Greece. Chess, wrestling,
polo, archery and hockey (possibly a fall-out from polo) are some of
the games believed to have originated in India.
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On 5/16/06, Barua25 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Ram:
Unlike India, ancient China
was comparable to Greece in sports ;
See article
below:
RB
| Sports in Ancient China and Greece
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|
|
The history of the Olympic Movement may be divided into the
ancient and modern periods. The ancient period covered at
least 12 centuries from 776 BC when the first Olympic Games
was held in Greece to AD 339 when the Roman emperor Theodosius
the Great prohibited the Olympic Games as a pagan activity.
Then came a lull of some 15 centuries in which no Olympic
Games were held, though the ancient Olympic ideals had not
perished from the mind of many a great thinker. The modern
period has covered less than one century, starting from 1896
when the first modern Olympic Games was held ---on an
international rather than national scale.
Chronologically, the ancient period of the Olympic Movement
corresponded in Chinese history to the period from the Eastern
Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC) to the Jin Dynasty (265-240 AD),
while the modern period corresponded to the period from the
latter part of the region of Guang Xu (1875-1909) of the Qing
Dynasty to the present-day People's Republic of China. In the
ancient period,China had no relations with Greece in the field
of sport, although there was the Silk Road serving as a
channel of trade and cultural exchanges between the East and
West from the second century BC. In the modern period,
however, China has been associated very early with the Olympic
Movement. Such a relationship is more or less rooted in the
common origin and features shared by ancient China and Greece
in the field of sport, which forms part of national culture
and is inseparable from socio-political life---for all social
communities at all times.
The ancient Olympic Games were a four-yearly event with
sporting activities as its main content and the cessation of
hostilities among the city states in Greece as its main
characteristic. In those days, China also experienced
divisions from time to time. There were the Spring and Autumn
Period (770-476 BC) and the Period of Warring States (475-221
BC) during the Zhou Dynasty before the First Emperor of Qin
(259-210 BC) unified the whole Chinese empire. Following the
Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220), the main part of China was divided
again during the Period of Three Kingdoms (220-280), to be
reunified under the Jin court. As in ancient Greece, there
were of course intervals of peace between wars among the
states or kingdoms---not as a result of the proclamation of
truce during the Olympic Games which were non-existent in
ancient China, but as a result of diplomatic manoeuvres or
military deterrent forces. After all, there is the universal
law of "split after long unity and unity after long split," as
Chinese philosophers put it.
However, the non-existence of Games does not necessarily
mean non-existence of sports. As a matter of face, there are
sports whenever and wherever there are human activities. Man
must take up sports to keep fit for survival and amuse
themselves after work. In order to gather food , hunters in
the palaeolithic times not only invented tools, such as stone
axes, balls, hooks, spearheads and nets, but also learned how
to use them more efficiently, knowing that only with a
stronger physique and the ability to run and swim faster, jump
higher and throw a projectile farther and with greater
precision could they catch more game and fish. This was the
origin of the running, jumping, throwing and swimming events
which figure so largely in the Olympic Games today, and whose
origin can only be attributed to human instincts rather than
to a particular race or individual at a particular time. The
stone balls excavated in Gaoyang County in China's Shanxi
Province date back to 100,000 years and are supposed to have
been used not only in hunting, but also in throwing contests
as athletes do in shot putting today. Archery, another Olympic
event, has appeared in the mythology of many nations. Odyssey
was said to have slain his wife's suitors with his bow and
arrows. A Chinese legend has it that during the Yao times many
thousand years ago, a marksman named Hou Yi shot down nine of
the 10suns in the sky which had scorched all plants on the
earth. Even today, bows and arrows are still used among many
ethnic groups in China as a weapon to kill animals and in
archery as a popular sporting event.
In ancient times men engaged themselves not only in flight
with nature, but also in flight among themselves. Therefore
sport has yet another aim: to improve the ability to beat the
enemy, with or without weapons. During the rule of the Yellow
Emperor, who has been held as the first ancestor of the
Chinese nation, a rebel tribe headed by Chiyou trained his
warriors in fighting with cow horns fastened to the head,
which was included in the "one hundred amusements" and
developed into various forms of wrestling in later
generations. Military training in ancient China included all
kinds of martial arts, such as wrestling, pugilism, fencing,
tripodlifting, horse-racing, stone-throwing, hunting and
swimming. During the Spring and Autumn Period, a high-ranking
official in Qi state named Guan Zhong (?-645 BC) ordered the
building of swimming pools by conducting the water of three
rivers and awarded heavy prizes to good swimmers among his
"water troops." A copper pot excavated in Chengdu in Sichuan
Province is inscribed with a battle on water in those days.
Among the Greeks there is note of occasional swimming races,
and a famous boxer swam as a part of his training.
Sports also served military purposes in a ancient Greece,
especially in Sparta where all citizens received stoic
military training from early childhood, in almost the same
sports as in ancient China. According to historical records
written during the Period of Warring States, the Chinese kings
and emperors ordered their officers to teach archery,
charioteering and wrestling in winter and "required the
populace to spend six hours farming and two hours practicing
martial arts every day."
The ancient Chinese and Greek civilizations shared another
thing in common in sporting activities, that is, they were
often combined with dancing. A pot in the Neolithic Age
excavated in Qinghai Province's Datong County shows on the
inside surface three groups of dancers. It is said that in
those times China was hit by frequent torrential rains and
floods and people suffered a lot from unbroken spells of wet
weather. In order to relax their stiffened bones and muscles
and dispel their gloomy moods, they would dance a kind of
dance that "could conduct the flow of blood and vital energy
in the body." The military training in Sparta also included
dances and there were choreographic competitions at the
ancient Olympic Games. Actually there was little or no
difference between physical exercises and dances as is the
case with such modern sports as figure skating and artistic
and rhythmic gymnastics.
What should be emphasized here is that sports were included
in the educational system both in ancient China and Greece.
During the Zhou Dynasty and the previous Xia (21st---16th
century BC) and Shang (16th---11th century BC) dynasties, all
seats of learning were at the same time places for teaching
martial arts. The great Chinese philosopher and Educationist
Confucius (551-479 BC) was also a good athlete in archery and
charioteering and took an active part in fishing, hunting,
excursions and hill-climbing. Paying equal attention to moral,
intellectual and physical development of his 3,000 pupils, he
carried out an educational system of "Six Arts," namely,
rituals, music, archery, charioteering, writing and
mathematics, which were supplementary to each other. In
archery, for instance, he insisted on proper conduct, or what
we call "sportsmanship" today, pointing out that an archer
should do his best to win and what's more important, "be
modest and observe rituals." Besides, he advised people to
keep a good eating habit, to abstain from stale dish and meat
and not to talk when taking a meal. Such guiding principles
were similar to those of the great Greek philosopher Plato
(428-348 BC) who held that physical training and sanitation
should become an important part of education and that one
should train his physique through sports and mould his
temperament through music. The curricula at his time included
gymnastics, which was broadened to embrace hygiene and
dietetics. The Greek gymnasium also taught philosophy,
literature and music, and public libraries were nearby.
It is interesting to note that both Chinese and Greek
educationists in ancient times emphasized that physical
training should suit different ages. According to the Chinese
classic work Li Ji (Book of Rites), children should learn
"civilian dances" at 13, "martial dances" at 15, and archery
and charioteering at older ages. Plato also advocated
different sports for different age groups---music and singing
for 7-12, dancing, wrestling, archery and horsemanship for
12-17 and more physical training for 17-20.
Whether out of historical necessity or contingency, sports
in both ancient China and Greece were closely combined with
productive labour, military training, dancing and the whole
educational system, thus providing an ideological foundation
for China's ready acceptance of the modern Olympic ideals,
which were deeply rooted in the ancient Greek society, in
spite of the cessation of Olympic Games for15 centuries.
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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 12:10
AM
Subject: Re: [Assam] EVEREST HISTORY
time line
Dear Barua,
>It is because of our caste system that sports never
became a >national event in India like that in Greece.
I was with you all this way - but now you have lost me.
What in the world has the caste system to do with playing chess or
wrestling (like Greece)?
Sports did and does exist in India. From the very
ancient times sports played a huge part - malla judho, hunting (sports),
kings also played games/sports riding elephants and did hold gynastic
competitions.
Yes, of course they did not play tennis or cricket or
skating - but these were all western concepts. The Japanese/Chinese have
sumo wrestling and judo etc.
But for the life of me, I can't name original
sports/games from China and Japan or even countries in
Africa.
Lets face it, most of the games came from variations of
the Greek Olympiads and Rome (parallel bars, Roman rings), and many of the
modern sports came either from England or Eastern Europe.
Is it because of the caste system that countries like
Japan, China, or from Africa have not developed sports?
--Ram
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