Friday, September 02, 2005

Bye August,Come September

A rather difficult month has passed away.A sacred month,part of it being Shravan.Let us hope September puts back the bad memories of the monsoon fury in Mumbai,the London bombing,the Iraq stampede and the Katrina .
August was earlier referred to as Sextilis till 8 BC when the grand nephew of Julius Caesar,Caesar's heir apparent,took control after Caesar's assasination. He fought Mark Anthony and Cleopatra and won and established his hereditary right to rule. If Caesar had killed the Senate by running Rome like a kingdom, his grand nephew buried the Senate by declaring himself the first Roman Emperor. And he ensured that for several generations the rulers were all from the family. Sons or stepsons. Don't blame the Nehrus and Gandhis for dynastic rule!.
There was great prosperity during the rule of Caesar Augustus. He built roads,trade flourished,rituals were encouraged,marriages were revived,taxation was introduced and he created a large personal army loyal to him of 150,000 men and had personal bodyguards. He lived probably till 14 AD and had the name of the month changed from Sextilis to August after his name Augustus which was earlier Gaius Octavius.The etmyology of the word is from the two words 'augury' meaning ritual divination and 'auctoritas' meaning spiritual authority. He even asked the Senate to declare his granduncle and benefactor Julius Caesar as"God".
And how part of the same August month which is Shravan in India is also a sacred and religious month makes interesting history. In September we celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi. Lord Ganesha is the remover of all obstacles. Let us seek his blessings for sailing smoothly from September onwards.

2 comments:

rums said...

true uncle, but in this day and age does it make sense to carry on dynastic rule? i find it amazing that otherwise intelligent and sane congressmen behave like such sycophants when it comes to the gandhis!!!
of course, now in politics it has become quite a trend to induct your entire khandan into the easy gravy train :)

gs said...

rums,why in politics only? even in bollywood i wonder where abhishek or esha or tushar or so many of them would be without their parents' influence.and it is happening in the corporate world as well.if you don't have a father or a godfather you are done in.no doubt there are exceptions.a shah rukh or a narayan moorthy.but by and large it is dynastic.and civil services also is no exception