Though not the highest mountain of Sri Lanka, the striking pyramid of Adam's Peak (7,360 ft) is certainly the most remarkable. A depression in the rocky summit resembles a huge footprint, which has been venerated as a sacred sigh from remote antiquity. This was identified by Buddhists as the Buddha's footprint, by Hindus as that of Shiva, and by Muslims as Adam's. Later the Portuguese attributed it to St. Thomas the Apostle.
The Mahawamsa tells how the sacred footprint was imprinted by the departing Buddha on his third visit to Lanka, but the site did not become an object of regular Buddhist pilgrimage until the Polonnaruwa period, when Vijayabahu I built resting houses for pilgrims and King Nissankamalla himself, in the year 1201, climbed to the top and worshipped the spot.
The Muslim tradition of a footprint of Adam, first of the prophets, goes back to gnostic sources as early as the Mahawamsa itself. According to the legend, Adam was hurled from Paradise for his disobedience and stood in penance for a thousand years on one foot at the top of Adam's Peak, after which he was reunited with Eve on Mt. Arafat overlooking Mecca. By the ninth century, this footprint was consequently considered one of the most sacred sites in the world.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
The story of Jake Sully....AVATAR
Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang. The film is set in the year 2154, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi—a sentient humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered Na'vi-human hybrid bodies used by a team of researchers to interact with the natives of Pandora.
Development on Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999, but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on the language for the film's extraterrestrial beings began in summer 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006.
Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million. Other estimates put the cost between $280 million and $310 million for production, and at $150 million for promotion. The film was released for traditional two-dimensional projectors, as well as in 3D, using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D and IMAX 3D formats, and also in 4D. The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a likely breakthrough in cinematic technology.
Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was released overseas on December 16 and in North America on December 18, to critical acclaim and commercial success. The film broke several box office records during its release and became the highest-grossing film of all time in North America and worldwide, surpassing Titanic, which had held the records for the previous 12 years. It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion. Following the film's success, Cameron stated that there will be a sequel. Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction.
Development on Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999, but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on the language for the film's extraterrestrial beings began in summer 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006.
Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million. Other estimates put the cost between $280 million and $310 million for production, and at $150 million for promotion. The film was released for traditional two-dimensional projectors, as well as in 3D, using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D and IMAX 3D formats, and also in 4D. The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a likely breakthrough in cinematic technology.
Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was released overseas on December 16 and in North America on December 18, to critical acclaim and commercial success. The film broke several box office records during its release and became the highest-grossing film of all time in North America and worldwide, surpassing Titanic, which had held the records for the previous 12 years. It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion. Following the film's success, Cameron stated that there will be a sequel. Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction.
Will the world end in 2012?
The release of the new Roland Emmerich Hollywood blockbuster ‘2012’ has brought fresh fervour to Internet geeks and astrological scholars alike, both of whom might have a keen interest in the prophesised events of December 21, 2012, although most likely for different reasons. The end of the world predictions for 2012 stem from the belief that at the conclusion of the 5,125 year-long Mayan long count calendar, which coincides with December 21, 2012 in our Gregorian calendar, there will be some sort of earth-shattering event or a series of events that will bring about the destruction of mankind.
The basis for these doomsday predictions appears to have some slightly thorny origins. The December 2012 date is connected to the conclusion of a time cycle in an ancient Mesoamerican calendar that began its countdown somewhere around 3114 BC. This starting point is when the ancient Maya people believed the previous world ended and a new one (the current one) began. The modern day interest in all this can be traced back to the late 1950s when Maud Worcester Makemson, an archaeoastronomer (someone that studies ancient astronomy and its sociological implications) noted that the end of this time cycle would have had great significance for the ancient Maya people. This idea was further developed by an American anthropologist called Michael Coe. In his book The Maya Coe claimed that some ancient Mayan writings suggested that the end of the long count calendar on December 21, 2012 marked the end of the world, Armageddon, doomsday!
There are a number of issues with these theories that should be noted however. Firstly, many scholars argue that in classical Maya literature there are conflicting accounts of what the end of the long count calendar might actually signify, and very few sources suggesting that it might mean an end of world scenario like the one interpreted by Micheal Coe. Secondly, the countdown was calculated differently from one Mayan city-state to another, so the precise date of the conclusion of the Mayan long count calendar is far from clear. It is also interesting that modern decedents of the ancient Maya people place little or no significance on the date December 21, 2012. Also, the ancient Maya scribes wrote about events that were set to take place after the date corresponding to December 21, 2012, so at least some of them did not predict the end of the world to take place on that date. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that either the end of the long count or its somewhat arbitrary beginning a little over 5000 years ago, have any scientific significance whatsoever.
But there are even more grand things going on in our picture of the end of the world cataclysm predicted for December 2012. Our doomsday prophecy puzzle also incorporates the idea of a significant galactic alignment that just happens to coincide with the 2012 winter solstice in December 2012, meaning the galaxy itself is conspiring against us. An American author called John Major Jenkins, who has written extensively about the Mayan culture and its relation to New Age mysticism suggests that the ancient Maya knew of this galactic alignment of planets and stars, and that this was part of their calendar countdown. However his claims, which relate to where in the sky the zodiacal constellations appear, would have had more credence in 1998 when the alignment he talks about was more precise than it will be in 2012.
No end of the world predictions would be complete without a little input from the most famous seer of them all, practically a by-word for futurology, none other than Nostradamus himself. While there are many accounts that can be found floating around the Internet, which say Nostradamus predicted the end of the world in 1997 or was it 1999, or even 2012, none of them are able to say conclusively what the predictions really were, and clearly some of them were just plain wrong, since we are still here. This is mainly because Nostradamus wrote in such an archaic language, mixed with mysticism and metaphor, no one really knows for sure what his precise meaning was in many of his predictions. In any case, most experts agree that if he did set a date for our demise it is somewhere in the late 38th century, so we should be OK for at least our lifetimes.
As well as the better known, or at least more talked about end of the world predictions, there is also a theory that a massive geomagnetic reversal is on the cards in 2012. This involves the magnetic poles and the Earth’s magnetic field completely reversing. Scientists in this area do agree that the Earth is long overdue such a reversal, and end of the world theorists have tied this into the predicted peaks in solar flare activity that are due in 2012, which could theoretically affect the Earth’s magnetic field. However experts are keen to point out that geomagnetic reversal is not something that would simply ‘start one day’. The process takes several thousand years and is not necessarily triggered by solar activity. What is more, the original predictions of a peak in solar activity in 2012 have now been put back to 2013
The basis for these doomsday predictions appears to have some slightly thorny origins. The December 2012 date is connected to the conclusion of a time cycle in an ancient Mesoamerican calendar that began its countdown somewhere around 3114 BC. This starting point is when the ancient Maya people believed the previous world ended and a new one (the current one) began. The modern day interest in all this can be traced back to the late 1950s when Maud Worcester Makemson, an archaeoastronomer (someone that studies ancient astronomy and its sociological implications) noted that the end of this time cycle would have had great significance for the ancient Maya people. This idea was further developed by an American anthropologist called Michael Coe. In his book The Maya Coe claimed that some ancient Mayan writings suggested that the end of the long count calendar on December 21, 2012 marked the end of the world, Armageddon, doomsday!
There are a number of issues with these theories that should be noted however. Firstly, many scholars argue that in classical Maya literature there are conflicting accounts of what the end of the long count calendar might actually signify, and very few sources suggesting that it might mean an end of world scenario like the one interpreted by Micheal Coe. Secondly, the countdown was calculated differently from one Mayan city-state to another, so the precise date of the conclusion of the Mayan long count calendar is far from clear. It is also interesting that modern decedents of the ancient Maya people place little or no significance on the date December 21, 2012. Also, the ancient Maya scribes wrote about events that were set to take place after the date corresponding to December 21, 2012, so at least some of them did not predict the end of the world to take place on that date. Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that either the end of the long count or its somewhat arbitrary beginning a little over 5000 years ago, have any scientific significance whatsoever.
But there are even more grand things going on in our picture of the end of the world cataclysm predicted for December 2012. Our doomsday prophecy puzzle also incorporates the idea of a significant galactic alignment that just happens to coincide with the 2012 winter solstice in December 2012, meaning the galaxy itself is conspiring against us. An American author called John Major Jenkins, who has written extensively about the Mayan culture and its relation to New Age mysticism suggests that the ancient Maya knew of this galactic alignment of planets and stars, and that this was part of their calendar countdown. However his claims, which relate to where in the sky the zodiacal constellations appear, would have had more credence in 1998 when the alignment he talks about was more precise than it will be in 2012.
No end of the world predictions would be complete without a little input from the most famous seer of them all, practically a by-word for futurology, none other than Nostradamus himself. While there are many accounts that can be found floating around the Internet, which say Nostradamus predicted the end of the world in 1997 or was it 1999, or even 2012, none of them are able to say conclusively what the predictions really were, and clearly some of them were just plain wrong, since we are still here. This is mainly because Nostradamus wrote in such an archaic language, mixed with mysticism and metaphor, no one really knows for sure what his precise meaning was in many of his predictions. In any case, most experts agree that if he did set a date for our demise it is somewhere in the late 38th century, so we should be OK for at least our lifetimes.
As well as the better known, or at least more talked about end of the world predictions, there is also a theory that a massive geomagnetic reversal is on the cards in 2012. This involves the magnetic poles and the Earth’s magnetic field completely reversing. Scientists in this area do agree that the Earth is long overdue such a reversal, and end of the world theorists have tied this into the predicted peaks in solar flare activity that are due in 2012, which could theoretically affect the Earth’s magnetic field. However experts are keen to point out that geomagnetic reversal is not something that would simply ‘start one day’. The process takes several thousand years and is not necessarily triggered by solar activity. What is more, the original predictions of a peak in solar activity in 2012 have now been put back to 2013
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