In October 2013, in Sangrampur (Daundia Khera) village in the Unnao district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a local seer named Shobhan Sarkar dreamt that over 1000 tonnes of gold were buried under the ruins of an old fort of a 19th-century king, Ram Baksh Singh. Sarkar wrote to the President of India, the Ministry of Mines (India) and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to consider excavation for the supposed hoard. The excavation work began on 18 October 2013. On 29 October 2013, the ASI announced that there was no gold buried in the location and stopped excavation work. More news was released on 29 October 2013, saying that ASI Director General Pravin Srivastava said the digging area was now planned to be widened, but clarified that the excavation work by his 12-member team had not been stopped. On 18 November 2013, ASI stopped the excavation and began filling up the trenches.

Village history
Sangrampur, also known as  Daundia Khera, is a village located in the Bighapur tehsil of Unnao district, about 100 km south of Lucknow city in Uttar Pradesh, India. According to the 2011 census of India, it has 469 households and a population of 2672.

In the 19th century, Alexander Cunningham, the founder of the Archaeological Survey of India, speculated that the site referred to as Hayamukha by Xuanzang, a 7th-century Chinese traveller, might be the present day Daundia Khera. Xuanzang had recorded visiting Hayamukha, where he noted five Buddhist monasteries housing over 1000 members of the Buddhist sect Saṃmitīya. Cunningham considered it "almost certain" that the two places were the same, but acknowledged that there were significant differences between the early descriptions and what he saw then. He also relied upon the thoughts of James Tod, another British scholar who is nowadays not considered a reliable historian.

Background of incident
In September 2013, a local  priest named Shobhan Sarkar, who is also revered as a Mahant, claimed that a 19th-century king of Daundia Khera, Ram Baksh Singh, had come to him in a dream and told him that 1000 tons of gold treasure were buried under his palace. In an interview to Wall Street Journal, Sarkar said that the ghost of Singh is worried about the Indian economy and he wants the treasure to be used for the economic growth of the country. Sarkar called the dream "a divine intervention" but refused to tell how, when and why only he learned about the buried treasure. The British had hanged Singh during the 1857 rebellion and destroyed his palace. Sarkar wrote to the Prime Minister, President and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) about his dream but his letters went ignored. Some sources say that Sarkar then approached Charan Das Mahant, a Minister of State for agriculture and the food processing industry in the Government of India, while other sources say that the minister heard of the story from a pandit in Kanpur who regularly kept in touch with him.

Minister Mahant visited the alleged treasure trove site on 22 September and 7 October 2013 and convinced the ASI and the Geological Survey of India (GSI) to inspect it. A team from the ASI visited the site on 12 October 2013 and drilled two holes at locations shown to them by Sarkar. The ASI said that they detected metal around 20 meters below the ground.  The GSI report also confirmed a prominent non-magnetic anomalous zone occurring at 5–20 m depth, indicative of possible non-conducting, metallic contents or alloys. The ASI announced the excavation of the site which began on 18 October 2013.

Excavation

The Ministry of Culture stated that the excavation would take 2–3 weeks to reach the depth of any deposits, while ASI officials at the site have said that the excavation may take months, or even years, as they are using only simple basic tools like grub hoes, pick mattocks and fork cultivators. The ASI has designated an area of 80 meters from east to west and 40 meters from north to south near the fort for the excavation. A team of twelve archaeologists from the ASI, led by its Deputy Director, PK Mishra, began excavation at the alleged gold treasure site in the presence of the Unnao Sub-Divisional Magistrate. The excavation took place in 10 pits, each measuring about 100 square feet. Hundreds of onlookers, Outside Broadcasting B vans, and dozens of journalists from different media organizations were also present. Heavy police security was deployed and night vision cameras were installed to enhance security. Considering the heavy crowd of onlookers, CCTV cameras were installed for security. On 21 October 2013, ASI additional director, Dr. B R Mani, said that after digging 48 cm into the ground, the ASI found a brick wall, shards, pieces of bangles, hopscotch toys and a mud floor which could date back to the 17-19th centuries. Until 24 October 2013, ASI has excavated 217 centimeters of ground. Til 2 November 2013, ASI has excavated 571 centimeters of ground. Sub-divisional magistrate Vijay Shanker Dubey said 70 cm and 30 cm were dug up respectively in two blocks after breaking the rocky base at the fort at Daundiya Kheda village on Saturday, but there is still no sight of the treasure on the 15th day of excavation.

Development
Following media reports that the Government of India was carrying out an excavation on the basis of Shobhan Sarkar's dream, the Ministry of Culture issued a statement to clarify that the excavation was being carried out on the basis of a report by GSI which conducted a Ground Penetrating Radar Survey at the site and reported the presence of "non-magnetic anomalous zone at 5-20 meter below the ground indicative of possible non-conductive metallic contents and/or alloys". Additional director general of ASI B. R. Mani denied the media reports that excavation was being carried out on the basis of a sadhu's dream while the ASI director of exploration doubted that any gold treasure would be found in the excavation. Several interested parties came out to claim a stake in the treasure. One of the king's descendants, Navchandi Veer Pratap Singh expressed his interest. The All India Kshatriya Mahasangha also staked a claim, saying that they are rightful claimants because Ram Baksh Singh belonged to their Kshatriya community.  Sarkar had another dream and claimed that 2,500 tons of  gold was hidden beneath Shiva Chabutara of Brahm Ashram at Adampur village in Fatehpur district, Uttar Pradesh. It was reported that Sarkar had written to Fatehpurs district magistrate informing about the dream. On the night of 19 October 2013,  caretaker Swamy Mohandas was locked up at gunpoint inside an ancient Shiva temple at Gangaghat in Adampur village. The people responsible dug up the ground in search of the alleged treasure. Some villagers claimed that they took away hidden gold.

A Public-interest litigation (PIL) was filed in the Supreme Court of India seeking directions from the court to make proper arrangements for safety and protection of alleged hidden treasure. On 21 October 2013, the court rejected the PIL saying that it cannot pass order on the "ground of assumption".

Reaction
Former President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said that, "according to me, science doesn't allow any guess. It [excavation by ASI] must have some logical conclusion." Bharatiya Janata Party's politician Narendra Modi mocked the government saying that, "The whole world is laughing at us over this bizarre exercise. Somebody dreamt and the government has launched an excavation." Nationalist Congress Party's leader Sharad Pawar said that, "this will lead to rise in 'buwabaji' (promoting superstition by godmen) in society" and further added that, "government agencies should not participate in such work." Thousands of onlookers were gathered to watch the excavation. Dozens of domestic and foreign TV journalists telecast the event live. Some media houses compared the 'media circus' with that of the 2010 Black comedy film Peepli Live. A journalist from Al Jazeera summed up the spectacle saying that, "We had heard that India is the land of snake charmers. After this we are ready to believe it." The weekly magazine India Today called the excavation "moronic madness" and added, "if this gold hunt ends in finding even a kilo of the yellow, we are doomed. An already overtly superstitious country will rush to self-declared saints and shower them with gold."

References

External links
 Does 1,000 tonnes of gold exist in Unnao? - Moneylife

2013 in India
Unnao district
Archaeological sites in Uttar Pradesh
Treasure troves in India
Archaeological Survey of India

Unnao gold treasure incident


Nishada () is a tribe mentioned in ancient Indian literature (such as the epic Mahabharata). The ancient texts mention several kingdoms ruled by this tribe. In the Mahabharata, the Nishadas are described as hunters, fishermen, mountaineers or raiders that have the hills and the forests as their abode.  Their origin is associated with a king called Vena who became a slave to wrath and malice, and became unrighteous. Sages killed him for his malice and wrongdoings. Ekalavya is stated to be an archer of a Nishada tribe in the text.

In the epic Ramayana, a king named Guha of the Nishada clan assists Rama during his period of exile.

Identity

In the earliest of the Indo-Aryan texts, the term "Nishada" may have been used as a generic term for all indigenous non-Aryan tribes rather than a single tribe. This is suggested by the fact that according to Yaska's Nirukta, Aupamanyava explains the Rigveda term "pancha-janah" ("five peoples") as the four varnas of the Indo-Aryan society and the Nishadas.

Linguist S. K. Chatterji notes that the Nishadas appear to be different from the Dasas and the Dasyus, which are the other non-Aryan people mentioned in the Vedic texts. Historian Ramaprasad Chanda identifies the Nishadas as the original speakers of the Munda languages. N. K. Dutt also identifies with them pre-Dravidian peoples of India, who presumably spoke a language belonging to the Austroasiatic family, the parent family of the Munda languages.

The Nishadas are sometimes confused with the Nisadhas (IAST: Niṣādha), who were a distinct, Indo-Aryan tribe.

Physical appearance

The Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata describes the Nishadas having dark skin colour similar to that of charred wood, black hair, blood red-coloured eyes, and short limbs. The later texts such as the Vishnu Purana and the Vayu Purana also emphasize the dark skin colour of the Nishadas. The Bhagavata Purana mentions the Nishadas as having copper-coloured hair, high cheekbones, and low-tipped nose.

Occupation

Various ancient texts associate the Nishadas with hunting and fishing.

Nishadas are presented as hunters in the Bala Kanda of the Ramayana, Utpala's 8th century commentary on the Brihat Samhita, and the Dharmasutras of Vaikhanasa and Ushanas. The Adi Parva of the Mahabharata describes the Nishada prince Ekalavya as the son of an archer, which suggests that archery was a hereditary trait of the Nishadas.

The Manusmriti and the Anushasana Parva of the Mahabharata mention fishing as the profession of the Nishadas. The Vishnu Smriti also seems to consider subsistence on fishing a characteristic of the Nishadas, as attested by Nanda-pandita's commentary on the text and the Katha-sarit-sagara.

The Raghuvamsha presents the Nishada as boatmen. The Ayodhya Kanda of the Ramayana, which mentions the Nishada as the name of an occupational caste (jāti), states that the Nishada king helped Rama cross the Ganges River. The Harivamsha states that the Nishadas collected gems and jewels from the river beds.

Maskarin's commentary on Gautama Dharmasutra suggests that elephant-training was another occupation associated with the Nishadas. This is also corroborated the use of the term "Nishadin" to describe an elephant-keeper in Bana's Harsha-charita and Magha's Shishupala-vadha.

Several ancient texts present the Nishadas as progeny of parents from different occupational classes, called the varnas (see Social status section below). However, such classifications are not indicative of the contemporary occupations of the Nishadas: rather, they appear to be a legal attempt to define the status of the Nishadas relative to the other varnas, so that the varna-specific laws could be applied to them.

Relations with the early Indo-Aryans

The Nishadas appear to have been among the first indigenous tribes encountered by the Indo-Aryans in India. Most of the other indigenous tribes find few mentions in the Vedic texts. The Nishadas appear in these texts several times, and as a full-fledged tribe within the Indo-Aryan social framework.

Aitareya Brahmana, an early text, describes the Nishadas as raiders operating in the forests. However, the later Shrauta texts suggest that they were gradually assimilated into the Indo-Aryan society, and were not considered as untouchable at this time. For example:

 The Apastamba-Shrauta-Sutra and the Latyayana-Shrauta-Sutra indicate that the Nishadas lived in villages: the performance of the Vishvajit Vedic ritual sacrifice required the performer to live with the Nishadas for three nights, and share their food.
 The Shrauta-Sutras of Apastamba, Katyayana, and Varaha, mention the participation of Nishadas in a sacrificial ceremony: A Nishada official (sthapati) makes offerings to fire to propitiate the deity Rudra, although this ceremony does not involving chanting of the Vedic mantras.
 The Manava-Shrauta-Sutra explicitly prescribes a Shrauta (Vedic) sacrifice for a Nishada chief.
 The Satyashadha-Shrauta-Sutra mentions a Nishada (a Nishada chief according to a commentary) in connection with the agnihotra and darsha-purna-masa rituals.
 The Purva-Mimamsa-Sutra of Jaimini discusses if the Nishada sthapati involved in the above-mentioned rituals should be a tribal chief or a person from one of the three higher varnas ("traivarnika"). It concludes that the sthapati should be a tribal chief.
 The Shatapatha Brahmana mentions them among the groups whom the Vedic priests taught Itihasa, the Atharvaveda, the art of snake-charming (sarpa-vidya), and demonology (deva-jana-vidya). The other groups included the Asuras, the Gandharvas, the selagas (possibly robbers or thieves), the snake-charmers, the bird-catchers etc.

These references suggest that the Indo-Aryans made efforts to assimilate the Nishadas into their own social order, but the Vedic ritual status granted to the Nishadas was limited in nature. Historian Ramaprasad Chanda speculates that the Nishadas were too numerous and too powerful to be eliminated, enslaved, or expelled by the Indo-Aryans: this may explain the limited attempts to assimilate them.

It is possible that only the high-class among the Nishadas were inducted into the Indo-Aryan society, while the majority of them remained unassimilated. Panini's Ganapatha mentions a gotra called Nishada, which according to scholar D. D. Kosambi, suggests that some tribal priests were assimilated as Brahmanas in the Indo-Aryan society.

Social status

The Rudra Adhyaya of the ancient Yajurveda Samhita shows reverence to the Nishadas, among others.

Nevertheless, the Nishadas held a low status in the Indo-Aryan society:

 Yaska's Nirukta excludes the Nishadas from the four varnas of the Indo-Aryan society, quoting Aupamanyava. The text explains the meaning of the word "Nishada" as a being in whom "sin or evil sits down".
 Baudhayana Dharmasutra and Arthashastra state that a Brahmana's son from a Shudra woman should inherit one-tenth of his father's property. Both these texts describe Nishadas as progeny of Brahmana men and Shudra women, but do not apply the inheritance rule to the Nishadas. The Baudhayana Dharmasutra states that a Nishada son should not receive any inheritance, while the Arthashastra allows only a maintenance for a Nishada son.
 The Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata states that the Nishada originated from the pierced thigh of the tyrant king Vena.

In what appears to be an attempt to define the status of the Nishadas in the varna system, several ancient texts present them as progeny of parents from different varnas. This appears to have been done for legal purposes, since a person's varna status determined how the contemporary law treated them. For example:

 Multiple sources describe the Nishadas as the children of Brahmana men and their Shudra wives. These texts include Baudhayana Dharmasutra, Arthashastra, Vashistha Dharmasutra, Manusmriti, Yajnavalkya Smriti, and the Anushasana Parva (48.5) of Mahabharata.
 Gautama, according to his commentators Maskarin and Haradatta, describes the Nishadas as the progeny of a Brahmana father and a Vaishya mother.
 The Anushasana Parva (48.12) and the Naradasmriti describe the Nishadas as of mixed Kshatriya and Shudra parentage.

Gradually, the Nishadas were relegated to the status of untouchables in the Indo-Aryan society.

Description in Ramayana
The main profession of Nishadas was fishing and hunting. According to one telling, once, a Nishada had killed one bird from a pair, causing the other bird to be aggrieved by its loss and experience the pangs of pain. Observing this deep pain inspired the sage Valmiki to write about the legend of king Rama of Ayodhya and his dutiful wife queen Sita, who lived in separation due to her capture by the rakshasa king Ravana. In the Ramayana, the king of the Nishadas, named Guha, is stated to be an ally of Rama. He helps Rama and Sita to cross the Ganges river near Shringiverapura.

References in Mahabharata
The Mahabharata speaks of Nishaada as forest hunters and fishermen. Nishadas were mentioned as tribes that have the hills and the forests for their abode and fishing as their chief occupation. They ruled over the hills, plains, land and dominated over the water.  They were linked with a king called Vena (see Saraswata Kingdom) (12,58). Nishadas lived in hamlets (12,328).

Aushmikas, and Nishadas, and Romakas were mentioned as bringing tribute to king Yudhishthira during his Rajasuya sacrifice (2,50).

Nishada Kingdom of Ekalavya

Ekalavya was the son of Hiranyadhanus, king of the Nishadas (1,134). He came to Hastinapura to join the military school of Drona.
Ekalavya's kingdom was the most famous Nishada kingdom during the time of the Pandavas. This kingdom was visited by Sahadeva during his military campaign to the south, to collect tribute for Yudhishthira's Rajasuya sacrifice;- Sahadeva, the Kuru warrior, conquered the country of the Nishadas and also the high hill called Gosringa, and that lord of earth called Srenimat (2,30). Nishada and Srenimat were mentioned together again at (5,4).

Ekalavya, the king of the Nishadas, always used to challenge Vasudeva Krishna to battle; but he was slain by Krishna in battle (5,48), (7-178,179) (16,6).

Arjuna had come to Nishada kingdom of Ekalavya, after the Kurukshetra War, to collect tribute for Yudhishthira's Ashwamedha sacrifice.

Arjuna proceeded to the dominions of the Nishada king, viz., the son of Ekalavya. The son of Ekalavya received Arjuna in battle. The encounter that took place between the Kuru hero and the Nishadas was furious. Unvanquished in battle, the valiant son of Kunti defeated the Nishada king who proved an obstacle to the sacrifice. Having subjugated the son of Ekalavya, he proceeded towards the southern ocean. (14,83).

Nishadas on the banks of Saraswati

A spot named Vinasana on the banks of Sarasvati River is mentioned as the gate to the kingdom of the Nishadas.  There the river is completely dried up and exist as a dry river channel (3,130). Pandavas were led to this place by their guide viz sage Lomasa, during their pilgrimage all over India.

Nishada Kingdom in the South India

This kingdom was visited by Sahadeva during his military campaign to the south, to collect tribute for Yudhishthira's Rajasuya sacrifice;- After defeating the Dandakas (Aurangabad, Maharashtra) the Kuru warrior, Sahadeva vanquished and brought under his subjection numberless kings of the Mlechchha tribe living on the sea coast, and the Nishadas and the cannibals and even the Karnapravarnas, and those tribes also called the Kalamukhas (2,30).

This Nishada's battled for the sake of Pandavas in the Kurukshetra War:- The Dravida, the Andhaka, and the Nishada foot-soldiers, urged on by Satyaki, once more rushed towards Karna in that battle (Kurukshetra War) (8,49).

Nishada Kingdom of Manimat

Manimat had his kingdom to the south of Kosala. This kingdom was visited by Bhima during his military campaign to the east, to collect tribute for Yudhishthira's Rajasuya sacrifice;- After conquering Vatsabhumi Bhima defeated the king of the Bhargas, as also the ruler of the Nishadas viz Manimat and numerous other kings (2,29). This kingdom is possibly the Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh. The famous Nishada king named Guha who befriended the Kosala prince Raghava Rama was also the king of this kingdom.

Nishada Kingdom close to Kalinga and Vanga

A prince named Ketumat is mentioned as battling along with the Kalingas against Bhima, in the Kurukshetra War. He was mentioned as the son of the Nishada king. He could be the son of Manimat the Nishada king, who was defeated formerly by Bhima. Ketumat was slain by Bhima along with the Kalinga heroes (6,54).

The Kalinga, the Vanga, and the Nishada heroes, riding on elephants were said to attack Arjuna in Kurukshetra War (8,17).

Mekalas (a kingdom close to Dakshina Kosala Kingdom, in Chathisgad) and Utkalas (western Orissa), and Kalingas, and Nishadas and Tamraliptakas (south of West Bengal), were mentioned as advancing against Nakula (8,22). The Kalingas, the Vangas, the Angas, the Nishadas and the Magadhas were mentioned together on the Kaurava side at (8,70).

Nishadas in Kurukshetra War

On Pandava Side

Nishadas were mentioned as battling for the sake of Pandavas along with the Pauravakas and Patachcharas; at(6,50). The southern Nishadas were also mentioned in the army of Pandavas (8,49).

On Kaurava Side

Nishada prince Ketumat was mentioned who was slain by Bhima along with the Kalinga heroes (6,54). Nishada army was mentioned to fight for the sake of Kauravas at various instances (6-118), (7,44), (8-17,20,22,60,70). Bhima is said to slay a Nishada prince (other than Ketumat) at (8,60).

A Mountain Range named Nishada

A mountain range in ancient India is named Nishada, mentioned along with other mountains like Meru, Mahendra, Malaya, Sweta, Sringavat, Mandara, Nila Dardurna, Chitrakuta, Anjanabha, the Gandhamadana mountains and the sacred Somagiri (13,165).

Nishada as a musical note

Shadaja, Rishabha, together with Gandhara, Madhyama, and likewise Panchama; after this should be known Nishada, and then Dhaivata (14,50). The seven original notes are Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Mahdhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata and Nishada (12,183).

Other References
Swords of excellent quality were manufactured in the country of the Nishadas. Pandavas possessed such swords (2,42).
The Utpalas, the Mekalas, the Paundras, the Kalingas, the Andhras, the Nishadas etc. were mentioned as defeated by Karna (7,4).
 The story of a robber of the name of Kayavya, born of a Kshatriya father and a Nishada mother is mentioned at (12,134).
In a remote region in the midst of the ocean, the Nishadas have their fair home (1,28).
Nishada king is equated with an Asura tribe called Krodhavardhana (1,67)
In Indian music, Nishada is the seventh note (swara) of the octave.

See also
 Kingdoms of Ancient India

References

Bibliography

Kisari Mohan Ganguli, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose, 1883–1896.

Adivasi
Himalayan peoples
Indigenous peoples of South Asia
Social groups of India
Ethnic groups in India
Karakoram

Nishadas


Events
 June 22 – Third Macedonian War ends with the Battle of Pydna. Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus (awarded the surname "Macedonicus" for this victory) defeat and capture Perseus of Macedon when he surrendered. This ends the Antigonid dynasty, one of the three successor empires created upon the death of Alexander the Great, and starts Roman domination of Greece.

168 BC


The ghazal is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. Ghazals often deal with topics of spiritual and romantic love and may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation from the beloved and the beauty of love in spite of that pain.

The ghazal form is ancient, tracing its origins to 7th-century Arabic poetry. The ghazal spread into South Asia in the 12th century due to the influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new Islamic Sultanate, and is now most prominently a form of poetry of many languages of the Indian subcontinent and Turkey.

A ghazal commonly consists of five to fifteen couplets, which are independent, but are linked – abstractly, in their theme; and more strictly in their poetic form. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet. In style and content, due to its highly allusive nature, the ghazal has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central themes of love and separation.

Etymology and pronunciation

The word ghazal originates from the Arabic word  (ġazal). This genre of Arabic poetry is derived from  (ḡazal) or  (ḡazila) - To sweet-talk, to flirt, to display amorous gestures.

The Arabic word  ġazal is pronounced . In English, the word is pronounced  or .

Poetic form
The ghazal is a short poem consisting of rhyming couplets, called bayt or sher. Most ghazals have between seven and twelve bayts. For a poem to be considered a true ghazal, it must have no fewer than five couplets. Almost all ghazals confine themselves to less than fifteen couplets (poems that exceed this length are more accurately considered as qasidas). Ghazal couplets end with the same rhyming pattern and are expected to have the same meter. The ghazal's uniqueness arises from its rhyme and refrain rules, referred to as the qaafiyaa and radif respectively. A ghazal's rhyming pattern may be described as AA BA CA DA, and so on.

In its strictest form, a ghazal must follow a number of rules:

 Matla'a: The first sher in a ghazal is called the matlaa. Both lines of the matla must contain the qaafiyaa and radif. The matlaa sets the tone of the ghazal, as well as its rhyming and refrain pattern. .
 Radif: The refrain word or phrase. Both lines of the matlaa and the second lines of all subsequent shers must end in the same refrain word called the radif.
 Qaafiyaa: The rhyming pattern. The radif is immediately preceded by words or phrases with the same end rhyme pattern, called the qaafiyaa.
 Maqta'a/Maktaa: The last couplet of the ghazal is called the maqtaa. It is common in ghazals for the poet's nom de plume, known as takhallus to be featured in the maqtaa. The maqtaa is typically more personal than the other couplets in a ghazal. The creativity with which a poet incorporates homonymous meanings of their takhallus to offer additional layers of meaning to the couplet is an indicator of their skill.
 Bahr/Behr: Each line of a ghazal must follow the same metrical pattern and syllabic (or morae) count.
 Misra-e-uulaa: The first line of each verse must be a statement.
 Misra-e-sani: The second line of each verse must be the proof of statement given in the first line.

Unlike in a nazm, a ghazal's couplets do not need a common theme or continuity. Each sher is self-contained and independent from the others, containing the complete expression of an idea. However, the shers all contain a thematic or tonal connection to each other, which may be highly allusive. A common conceit that traces its history to the origins of the ghazal form is that the poem is addressed to a beloved by the narrator.

Interpreting a ghazal
The Ghazal tradition is marked by the poetry's ambiguity and simultaneity of meaning. Learning the common tropes is key to understanding the ghazal.

There are several locations a sher might take place in the Hindu/Urdu:

 The Garden, where the poet often takes on the personage of the bulbul, a songbird. The poet is singing to the beloved, who is often embodied as a rose.

hoon garmi-i-nishat-i-tasavvur se naghma sanj

Main andalib-i-gulshan-i-na afridah hoon

- Ghalib

I sing from the warmth of the passionate joy of thought

I am the bulbul of a garden not yet created

 The Tavern, or the maikhana, where the poet drinks wine in search of enlightenment, union with God, and desolation of self.

mir un neem-baaz ankhon men saari masti sharab ki si hai

- Mir Taqi Mir

 'Mir' is in those half-closed eyes all flirtation is a bit like wine

History

Origins in Arabia
The ghazal originated in Arabia in the 7th century, evolving from the qasida, a much older pre-Islamic Arabic poetic form. Qaṣīdas were typically much longer poems, with up to 100 couplets. Thematically, qaṣīdas did not include love, and were usually panegyrics for a tribe or ruler, lampoons, or moral maxims. However, the qaṣīda's opening prelude, called the nasīb, was typically nostalgic and/or romantic in theme, and highly ornamented and stylized in form. In time, the nasīb began to be written as standalone, shorter poems, which became the ghazal.

The ghazal came into its own as a poetic genre during the Umayyad era (661–750) and continued to flower and develop in the early Abbasid era. The Arabic ghazal inherited the formal verse structure of the qaṣīda, specifically, a strict adherence to meter and the use of the Qaafiyaa, a common end rhyme on each couplet (called a bayt in Arabic and a sher in Persian).

The nature of the ghazals also changed to meet the demands of musical presentation, becoming briefer in length. Lighter poetic meters, such as khafîf, ramal, and muqtarab were preferred, instead of longer, more ponderous meters favored for qaṣīdas (such as kâmil, basît, and rajaz). Topically, the ghazal focus also changed from nostalgic reminiscences of the homeland and loved ones, towards romantic or erotic themes. These included sub-genres with themes of courtly love (udharî), eroticism (hissî), homoeroticism (mudhakkar), and as a highly stylized introduction to a larger poem (tamhîdî).

Spread of the Arabian ghazal
With the spread of Islam, the Arabian ghazal spread both westwards, into Africa and Spain, as well as eastwards, into Persia. The popularity of ghazals in a particular region was usually preceded by a spread of the Arabic language in that country. In medieval Spain, ghazals written in Hebrew as well as Arabic have been found as far back as the 11th century. It is possible that ghazals were also written in the Mozarabic language. Ghazals in the Arabic form have also been written in a number of major West African literary languages like Hausa and Fulfulde.

Dispersion into Persia

Early Arabo-Persian ghazals (10th to 11th century)
However, the most significant changes to the ghazal occurred in its introduction into Iran in the 10th century. The early Persian ghazals largely imitated the themes and form of the Arabian ghazal. These "Arabo-Persian" ghazals introduced two differences compared to their Arabian poetic roots. Firstly, the Persian ghazals did not employ radical enjambment between the two halves of the couplet, and secondly, the Persian ghazals formalized the use of the common rhyme in both lines of the opening couplet ("matla"). The imitation of Arabian forms in Persia extended to the qaṣīda, which was also popular in Persia.

Because of its comparative brevity, thematic variety and suggestive richness, the ghazal soon eclipsed the qaṣīda, and became the most popular poetry form in Persia. Much like Arabian ghazals, early Persian ghazals typically employed more musical meters compared to other Persian poetry forms. Rudaki (858–941 CE) is considered the most important Persian ghazal poet of this period, and the founder of classical Persian literature.

Early Persian ghazal poetry (12th to early 13th century)
The Persian ghazal evolved into its own distinctive form between the 12th and 13th centuries. Many of those innovations created what we now recognize as the archetypical ghazal form. These changes occurred in two periods, separated by the Mongol Invasion of Persia from 1219 to 1221 AD.

The 'Early Persian poetry' period spanned approximately one century, from the Ghaznavid era (which lasted until 1187) till a little after the Mongol Invasion. Apart from the movement towards brevity, this period also saw two significant and lasting changes to the ghazal form.

The first change was the adoption of the Takhallus, the practice of mentioning the poet's penname in the final couplet (called the maqta). The adoption of the takhallus became a gradually accepted part of the ghazal form, and by the time of Saadi Shirazi (1210–1291 AD), the most important ghazal poet of this period, it had become de rigueur. The second marked change from Arabian ghazal form in Persian ghazals was a movement towards far greater autonomy between the couplets.

Late Persian poetry in the Early Mongol Period (1221–)
The ghazal later spread throughout the Middle East and South Asia. It was famous all around the Indian subcontinent in the 18th and 19th centuries

Introduction into Indian subcontinent

The ghazal was spread from Persia into South Asia in the 12th century by the influence of Sufi mystics and the courts of the new Islamic sultanates.   This period coincided with the early Islamic Sultanates in India, through the wave of Islamic invasions into the region in that period.

The 13th century Chishti Sufi poet Hasan Sijzi is regarded as the originator of the Indo-Persian ghazal. Sijzi's contemporary, the poet and musician Ameer Khusrow is not only credited as the first Urdu poet but also created Hindustani as we know today by merging braj, khadhi boli, Hindi, Urdu, Persian and other local dialects.

During the reign of the Sultan of Bengal Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah, the city of Sonargaon became an important centre of Persian literature, with many publications of prose and poetry. The period is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature is illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence with the Persian poet Hafez. When the Sultan invited Hafez to complete an incomplete ghazal by the ruler, the renowned poet responded by acknowledging the grandeur of the king's court and the literary quality of Bengali-Persian poetry.

It is said that Atul Prasad Sen pioneered the introduction of Bengali ghazals. Residing in Lucknow, he was inspired by Persian ghazals and experimented with a stream of Bengali music which was later enriched profusely by the contribution of Kazi Nazrul Islam and Moniruddin Yusuf.

Themes
"The ghazal was initially composed to a purely religious theme". Now in this era ghazals are more likely to have romantic themes.

Unconditional, superior love

Can usually be interpreted for a higher being or for a mortal beloved. Love is always viewed as something that will complete a human being, and if attained will lift him or her into the ranks of the wise or will bring satisfaction to the soul of the poet. Traditional ghazal law may or may not have an explicit element of sexual desire in it, and the love may be spiritual. The love may be directed to either a man or a woman.

The ghazal is always written from the point of view of the unrequited lover whose beloved is portrayed as unattainable. Most often, either the beloved has not returned the poet's love or returns it without sincerity or else the societal circumstances do not allow it. The lover is aware and resigned to this fate but continues loving nonetheless; the lyrical impetus of the poem derives from this tension. Representations of the lover's powerlessness to resist his feelings often include lyrically exaggerated violence. The beloved's power to captivate the speaker may be represented in extended metaphors about the "arrows of his eyes", or by referring to the beloved as an assassin or a killer. Take, for example, the following couplets from Amir Khusro's Persian ghazal Nemidanam che manzel būd shab:

Sufism
Many of the major historical ghazal poets were either avowed Sufis themselves (like Rumi or Hafiz), or were sympathizers with Sufi ideas. Somewhat like American soul music, but with melancholy instead of funk, most ghazals can be viewed in a spiritual context, with the Beloved being a metaphor for God or the poet's spiritual master. It is the intense Divine Love of Sufism that serves as a model for all the forms of love found in ghazal poetry.

Most ghazal scholars today recognize that some ghazal couplets are exclusively about Divine Love (). Others are about earthly love (), but many can be interpreted in either context.

Traditionally invoking melancholy, love, longing, and metaphysical questions, ghazals are often sung by Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian musicians. The form has roots in seventh-century Arabia, and gained prominence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, thanks to such Persian poets as Rumi and Hafiz, and later to Indian poets such as Mirza Ghalib. In the eighteenth century, the ghazal was used by poets writing in Urdu. Among these poets, Ghalib is the recognized master.

Important ghazal poets

Ghazals were written by Rumi, Hafiz and Saadi Shirazi of Persia; the Turkic poets Yunus Emre, Fuzûlî and Nesimi of the Ottoman Empire; Mirza Ghalib and Muhammad Iqbal of North India; and Kazi Nazrul Islam of Bengal. Through the influence of Goethe (1749–1832), the ghazal became very popular in Germany during the 19th century; the form was used extensively by Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866) and August von Platen (1796–1835). The Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali was a proponent of the form, both in English and in other languages; he edited a volume of "real Ghazals in English". Ghazals were also written by Moti Ram Bhatta (1866–1896), the pioneer of Nepali ghazal writing in Nepali. Ghazals were also written by Hamza Shinwari, He is known as the father of Pashto Ghazals.

Translations and performance of classical ghazal
Enormous collections of ghazal have been created by hundreds of well-known poets over the past thousand years in Persian, Turkish, and Urdu as well as in the Central Asian Turkic languages. Ghazal poems are performed in Uzbek-Tajik Shashmakom, Turkish Makam, Persian Dastgah and Uyghur Muqam. There are many published translations from Persian and Turkish by Annemarie Schimmel, Arthur John Arberry and many others.

Ghazal "Gayaki", the art of singing or performing the ghazal in the Indian classical tradition, is very old. Singers like Ustad Barkat Ali and many other singers in the past used to practice it, but the lack of historical records make many names anonymous. It was with Begum Akhtar and later on Ustad Mehdi Hassan that classical rendering of ghazals became popular in the masses. The categorization of ghazal singing as a form of "light classical" music is a misconception.

Classical ghazals are difficult to render because of the varying moods of the "shers" or couplets in the ghazal. Amanat Ali Khan, Begum Akhtar, Talat Mahmood, Mehdi Hassan, Abida Parveen, Jagjit Singh, Farida Khanum and Ustad Ghulam Ali, Moinuddin Ahamed, are popular classical ghazal singers.

Popularity
The ghazal has historically been one of the most popular poetic forms across the Middle East and South Asia. Even into the modern era the ghazal has retained its extreme popularity among South Asian royalty and nobility, among whom its education and patronisation has traditionally found shelter, especially with several Indian rulers including several Indian Emperors being profound composers of ghazals. In the 19th century ghazals gained popularity in Germany with Goethe's translations, as well as with Spanish ghazal writers such as Federico García Lorca. Despite often being written in strong Urdu and rendered with classical Indian Ragas along with complex terminology most usually accessible to the upper classes, in South Asia ghazals are nonetheless popular among all ages. They are most popular in Turkey and South Asia, and readings or musical renditions of ghazals—such as at mehfils and mushairas—are well attended in these countries, even by the laity. Ghazals are popular in South Asian film music. The ragas to which ghazals are sung are usually chosen to be in consonance with their lyrical content.

Understanding the complex lyrics of traditional ghazals required education typically available only to the upper classes. The traditional classical rāgas in which the lyrics were rendered were also difficult to understand. The ghazal has undergone some simplification in recent years, in terms of words and phrasings, which helps it to reach a larger audience around the world. Modern shayars (poets) are also moving towards a less strict adherence to form and rules, using simpler language and words (sometimes even incorporating words from other languages, such as English - see Parveen Shakir), and moving away from a strictly male narrator.

Most of the ghazals are now sung in styles that are not limited to khayāl, thumri, rāga, tāla and other classical and light classical genres. However, those forms of the ghazal are looked down on by purists of the Indian classical tradition.

In Pakistan, Mehdi Hassan, Noor Jehan, Iqbal Bano, Abida Parveen, Farida Khanum, Ghulam Ali, Ahmed Rushdi, Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, and Parvez Mehdi are known for ghazal renditions. Indian Singers like Jagjit Singh (who first used a guitar in ghazals), Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain, Hariharan, Adithya Srinivasan, Pankaj Udhas, Umbayee and many others have been able to give a new shape to the ghazal by incorporating elements of Western music.

Ghazals in other South Asian languages
In addition to Urdu, ghazals have been very popular in the Gujarati language. For around a century, starting with Balashankar Kantharia, there have been many notable Gujarati ghazal writers including Kalapi, Barkat Virani 'Befaam', Asim Randeri, Shunya Palanpuri, Amrut Ghayal, Khalil Dhantejvi and many more. Some notable ghazals of those prominent writers have been sung by Bollywood playback singer Manhar Udhas.

Renowned ghazal singer, and pioneer of Telugu ghazals, Ghazal Srinivas popularized the ghazal in Telugu. Ghazals in the Kannada language were pioneered in the 1960s by poet Shantarasam, though recordings of their poetry only began to be made in the early 2000s. Legendary musician Umbayee composed ghazals in Malayalam and popularized this form of music across Kerala.

Suresh Bhat popularized ghazals in the Marathi language. Some of his amazing ghazals were sung by famous artists like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosale. He was known as Ghazal Samrat (the Emperor of ghazals) for his exposition of the ghazal form of poetry and its adaptation to the Marathi language. His disciple Ilahi Jamadar continued the tradition, blending Urdu and Marathi verses in his work.

Kazi Nazrul Islam brought ghazals to the Bengali language, composing numerous poems which are still famous in both Bangladesh and India. Teg Ali Teg introduced ghazals in Bhojpuri, his ghazals collection Badmash Darpan was published in 1895.

In English
After nearly a century of "false starts," the early experiments of James Clarence Mangan, James Elroy Flecker, Adrienne Rich, Phyllis Webb, etc., many of whom did not adhere wholly or in part to the traditional principles of the form, experiments dubbed as "the bastard Ghazal," the ghazal finally began to be recognized as a viable closed form in poetry of the English language some time in the early to mid-1990s. It came about largely as a result of serious, true-to-form examples being published by noted American poets John Hollander, W. S. Merwin and Elise Paschen as well as by Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali, who had been teaching and spreading word of the Ghazal at American universities over the previous two decades. Jim Harrison created his own free-form Ghazal true to his poetic vision in Outlyer and Ghazals (1971).

In 1996, Ali compiled and edited the world's first anthology of English-language ghazals, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2000, as Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English. (Fewer than one in ten of the ghazals collected in Real Ghazals in English observe the constraints of the form.)

A ghazal is composed of couplets, five or more. The couplets may have nothing to do with one another except for the formal unity derived from a strict rhyme and rhythm pattern.

A ghazal in English observes the traditional restrictions of the form:
Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?
Whom else from rapture's road will you expel tonight?

Those "Fabrics of Cashmere—" "to make Me beautiful—"
"Trinket"— to gem– "Me to adorn– How– tell"— tonight?

I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates–
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

God's vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar–
All the archangels– their wings frozen– fell tonight.

Lord, cried out the idols, Don't let us be broken
Only we can convert the infidel tonight.

Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities
multiply me at once under your spell tonight.

He's freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven.
He's left open– for God– the doors of Hell tonight.

In the heart's veined temple, all statues have been smashed
No priest in saffron's left to toll its knell tonight.

God, limit these punishments, there's still Judgment Day–
I'm a mere sinner, I'm no infidel tonight.

Executioners near the woman at the window.
Damn you, Elijah, I'll bless Jezebel tonight.

The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer
fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight.

My rivals for your love– you've invited them all?
This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight.

And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee–
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.

— Agha Shahid Ali

Notable poets who composed ghazals in English
 Agha Shahid Ali, "Ghazal ('...exiles')"
 Robert Bly, The Night Abraham Called to the Stars and My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy
 Francis Brabazon, In Dust I Sing (Beguine Library, 1974).
 Fern G. Z. Carr,  "Ghazal for M."
 G.S. Sharat Chandra, "The Anonymous Lover"
 Andrew D. Chumbley, "Qutub" (Xoanon), 1995.
 Maryann Corbett, "Storybook Ghazal"
 Lorna Crozier, "Bones in Their Wings"
 Sukhdarshan Dhaliwal, "Ghazals at Twilight" (SD Publications), 2009
 Judith Fitzgerald, Twenty-Six Ways Out of This World (Oberon), 1999.
Marilyn Hacker, A Stranger's Mirror: New and Selected Poems 1994 - 2014 (2015) ISBN 978-0-393-24464-9
 Jim Harrison, Outlyer and Ghazals (Touchstone), 1971
 John Hollander, "Ghazal On Ghazals"
 Galway Kinnell, "Sheffield Ghazal 4: Driving West", "Sheffield Ghazal 5: Passing the Cemetery" (Mariner Books), 2001
 Marilyn Krysl, "Ghazals for the Turn of the Century"
 Maxine Kumin, "On the Table"
 Edward Lowbury, "A Ghazel (for Pauline)" (1968); "Prometheus: a ghazel" (1976); "Remembering Nine (a ghazel for Peter Russell)" (1981)
 William Matthews, "Guzzle", "Drizzle"
 W. S. Merwin, "The Causeway"
 Elise Paschen, "Sam's Ghazal"
 Robert Pinsky, "The Hall"
 Spencer Reece, Florida Ghazals
 Adrienne Rich, Ghazals: Homage to Ghalib
 John Thompson, "Stilt Jack" (Anansi), 1978.
 Natasha Trethewey, "Miscegenation", 2006.
 Phyllis Webb, Water and Light: Ghazals and Anti Ghazals (Coach House), 1984.
 John Edgar Wideman, "Lost Letter"
 Eleanor Wilner, "Ghazal on What's to Lose, or Not"
 Rob Winger, "The Chimney Stone" (Nightwood Editions), 2010

Ghazal in Music

Ghazals has been used in music throughout South Asia and has become a genre of its own, simply called "Ghazal" which refers to the music genre. The Ghazal music genre is most popular in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Some notable Afghan ghazal singers are (Persian/Pashtu):
 Sarahang
 Ulfat

Some notable Pakistani and Indian ghazal singers are (Urdu/Hindi):

 Ahmed Rushdi
 Abida Parveen
 Ali Sethi
 Amjad Parvez
 Anuradha Paudwal
 Anup Jalota
 Ataullah Khan
 Ateeq Hussain Khan
 Salma Agha
 Kiran Ahluwalia
 Begum Akhtar
 Najma Akhtar
 Ghulam Ali
 Talat Aziz
 Gulbahar Bano
 Iqbal Bano
 Beauty Sharma Barua
 Munni Begum
 Asha Bhosle
 Rahmatullah Dard
 Chandan Dass
 Pankaj Udhas
 Hariharan
 Mehdi Hassan
 Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain
 Cassius Khan
 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
 Ustad Amanat Ali Khan
 Asad Amanat Ali Khan
 Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan
 Shreya Ghoshal
 Bade Fateh Ali Khan
 Hamid Ali Khan
 Shahabaz Aman
 Khalil Haider
 Farida Khanum
 Runa Laila
 Master Madan
 Talat Mahmood
 Mahwash
 Lata Mangeshkar
 Penaz Masani
 Aziz Mian
 Habib Wali Mohammad
 Mukesh
 Sonu Nigam
 Nizami Brothers
 Nayyara Noor
 Noorjehan
 Bhimrao Panchale
 Shishir Parkhie
 Malika Pukhraj
 Mohammed Rafi
 Roop Kumar Rathod
 Sunali Rathod
 Reshma
 Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
 Sabri Brothers
 Jagjit Singh
 Sajjad Ali
 Mohammad Hussain Sarahang
 Mohammad Reza Shajarian
 Bhupinder and Mitali Singh
 Jasvinder Singh
 Ghazal Srinivas
 Adithya Srinivasan
 Tahira Syed
 Manhar Udhas
 Nirmal Udhas
 Pankaj Udhas
 Suresh Wadkar
 Ahmad Wali
 Alka Yagnik
 Umbayee

Many Indian and Pakistani film singers are famous for singing ghazals, such as these:

 Ahmed Rushdi
 Hariharan
 Mehdi Hassan
 Jagjit Singh
 Noor Jehan
 Talat Mahmood
 Lata Mangeshkar
 Srilekha Parthasarathy
 Mohammad Rafi
 Shiv Dayal Batish
 Shreya Ghoshal
 Ghulam Ali
 K. L. Saigal
 Chitra Singh
 Asha Bhosle
 Tina Sani

Some Malay singers are famous for singing Ghazal, such as these:

 Jamal Abdillah
 Sharifah Aini
 Rosiah Chik
 Noraniza Idris
 Rhoma Irama
 M. Nasir

See also
 Filmi-ghazal, Indian filmi music based on ghazal poetry

Notes

Footnotes

References
 Agha Shahid Ali (ed.). Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English.
 Agha Shahid Ali. Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals.
 Bailey, J. O. The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A handbook and Commentary.
 de Brujn, "ḠAZAL i. HISTORY", Encyclopaedia Iranica. 2012.
 Doty, Gene (ed. 1999–2014) and Jensen, Holly (ed. 2015-today). The Ghazal Page; various postings, 1999—today
 Kanda, K.C., editor. Masterpieces of the Urdu Ghazal: From the 17th to the 20th Century. Sterling Pub Private Ltd., 1991
 Mufti, Aamir. "Towards a Lyric History of India." boundary 2, 31: 2, 2004
 Reichhold, Jane (ed.). Lynx; various issues, 1996–2000
 Sells, Michael A. Early Islamic Mysticism.
 Watkins, R. W. (ed.). Contemporary Ghazals; Nos. 1 and 2, 2003–2004
 Lall, Inder jit. "Ghazal Movements", Century, May 23, 1964
 Lall, Inder jit. "Heightened sensibility" The Economic Times, December 31, 1978
 Lall, Inder jit. "The Ghazal – Evolution & Prospects", The Times of India, November 8, 1970
 Lall, Inder Jit. "The New Ghazal", The Times of India, July 3, 1971
 Lall, Inder jit. "Ghazal: A Sustainer of Spasms", Thought, May 20, 1967
 Lall, Inder jit. "Tuning into modern ghazals", Sunday Herald, January 29, 1989
 Lall, Inder Jit. "Ghazal: Melodies and minstrels", Sunday Patriot, June 29, 1986
 Lall, Inder jit. "Charm of ghazal lies in lyricism", Hindustan Times, August 8, 1985

External links

 A Desertful of Roses The Divan-e Ghalib – in Urdu, with Devanagari and Roman transliterations.
 Ghazal Radio dedicated ghazal radio.
 Ghazal poets A list of ghazal writers.
 Mere Rashke Qamar One of the Best ghazal of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
 Ghazals Manuscript, Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Pennsylvania LJS 44

Persian literature
Persian poetry
Urdu-language literature
Arabic and Central Asian poetics
Pakistani poetics
Literary genres
Indian music
Pakistani music
Ancient Persian literature
Persian poetic forms
Arabic poetry forms

Ghazal


The Food Standards Agency is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for protecting public health in relation to food in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is led by a board appointed to act in the public interest. Its headquarters are in London, with offices in York, Birmingham, Wales and Northern Ireland. The agency had a national office in Scotland until the formation of Food Standards Scotland in April 2015.

History
The Agency was created in 2001 based on a report by Professor James, issued after several high-profile outbreaks and deaths from foodborne illness.  It was felt that it was inappropriate to have one government department, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, responsible for both the health of the farming and food processing industries, and for food safety.

Uniquely for a UK Government department, the Food Standards Act gave the Agency the statutory right to publish the advice it gives to Ministers, and as a signal of its independence it declared that it would invariably do so. From its inception, the Agency declared that it would take no decisions about food policy except in open board meetings accessible to the public. Since 2003, these meetings have been webcast live, enabling consumers to see the decision-making process in action. Each meeting concludes with a question and answer session in which web viewers can question the board or its executive directly.

In 2006, the Wine Standards Board merged with the FSA, bringing with it responsibility for enforcing the EU wine regime in the UK.

Formerly an executive agency of the FSA, the Meat Hygiene Service merged with the FSA in April 2010 to form a new operations group with responsibility for the delivery of official controls.

Certain aspects of food labelling regulations in England were transferred from the Food Standards Agency to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on 1 September 2010. In England, the Agency retains responsibility for food safety-related labelling issues, whereas the devolved Food Standards Agency offices in Wales and Northern Ireland are still responsible for all labelling and standards policy.

Nutrition policy, including nutrition labelling, in England and Wales was transferred from the Food Standards Agency to the Department of Health and Social Care in England and to the Welsh Government's Department of Health and Social Services on 1 October 2010. On the establishment of Public Health England in 2013, the nutrition policy team – led by Alison Tedstone – transferred there.

The Food Standards Agency offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland retained their responsibilities for nutrition policy. Plans to create a new food standards body in Scotland were announced by Ministers in June 2012, and in January 2015, this body was established through primary legislation. Food Standards Scotland took over from the FSA on 1 April 2015 as the public body responsible for food safety, food standards, nutrition, food labelling and meat inspection in Scotland.

Events

Recalls and contamination
In February 2005, the agency announced the discovery of the dye Sudan I in Worcester sauce, prompting a mass product recall of over 400 products that used the sauce as a flavouring.

On 31 March 2006, it published its "Survey of benzene levels in soft drinks", which tested 150 products and found that four contained benzene levels above the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking water. The Agency asked for these to be removed from sale.

The Food Standards Agency also imposed restrictions on the sheep trade because of the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe which were repealed in March 2012.

Children's advertising
The FSA pushed for stricter rules on TV advertising to children of foods high in salt, sugar and fat and devised a nutritional profiling system to measure the balance of benefit and detriment in individual food products. In 2007, the UK TV regulator Ofcom introduced restrictions on advertising of products that scored poorly under the scheme.

Food poisoning
In June 2002, and re-released in June 2006, the FSA conducted an advertising campaign on British television, highlighting the danger of food poisoning caused by barbecues. The advert, intended to shock viewers, shows sausages sizzling on a barbecue, looking to the viewer as if they are cooked. However, when a pair of tongs pick up one of these sausages, it falls apart, and reveals pink, uncooked meat in the middle. To emphasize the risk of diarrhoea and vomiting caused by food poisoning, the song "When Will I See You Again" by The Three Degrees is played in the background.

Dean Review
In 2005, Brenda Dean carried out an independent review of the Food Standards Agency. The report made 22 recommendations, all of which were accepted by the Food Standards Agency board.

Dean concluded:
My overwhelming impression, having undertaken this Review, is of an organisation that has been extremely conscious of the importance of fulfilling the very serious responsibilities of changing both the perception and the reality of food safety in the UK.

It has done well in taking forward the experiences, good and bad, of the previous regime, to begin building its own reputation.

Most stakeholders agreed that the Agency has made significant progress towards improving food safety, gaining public confidence in food safety, and creating a modern culture in which it is the norm for procedures, information, consultation and decision-making to be in the public domain and to involve external stakeholders.

There was overwhelming support for the Agency's policy of basing decisions on scientific evidence, and for this policy to be maintained and developed further. The vast majority of stakeholders believe the Agency to be independent and to act independently, with general recognition that decisions are based on scientific evidence.

There was general support for the Agency amongst all stakeholder groups, both in terms of the objectives of the Agency, and the way in which the Agency has approached and undertaken its responsibilities.
One principal criticism, identified in the report, was (Recommendation 20):

It is clear that many stakeholders believe the Agency has already made policy decisions on GM foods and organic foods and is not open to further debate. The Agency must address the perceptions of these stakeholders who have now formed views of the Agency founded on their belief that the basis upon which the Agency's policy decisions were made was flawed.

Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS)
A food hygiene rating scheme has been deployed by the Food Standards Agency for all food businesses. Ratings are available at the business premises and online.
Following a meeting in Cardiff, the FSA plans to make audit reports as widely available as possible for the public. According to Terence Collins, FSA's Director of communication, the reason behind this decision is to make ratings simple and easily understood for every single business.

Apart from Scotland which is under a very simple Food Hygiene Information Scheme, the FSA's Food Hygiene Rating Scheme will be tested throughout United Kingdom. As a result, ratings will range from 0 (improvement urgently needed) to 5 (very good), and may be displayed on a certificate. This information will also be made available online. Rating primary meat processing plants is the next step forward for the FSA, as meat audit are currently only available through Freedom of Information requests.

The local authority in Rutland is believed to the only one which has not accepted the scheme.

Chairperson and advisory committees
Sir John Krebs was the first Chair of the Food Standards Agency, until 2005. Dame Deirdre Hutton was Chair between 2005 and July 2009, followed by
Jeff Rooker until July 2013. Tim Bennett, the former Deputy Chair, was appointed as interim Chair whilst a permanent appointment was made.  Heather Hancock was appointed the new Chair on 1 April 2016, for a three-year term, and reappointed for a further three year term from 1 April 2019.

The Agency is advised by a number of independent expert committees, including the following:

 Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs
 Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food
 Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes
 Advisory Committee on Social Sciences
 Committee on Toxicity
 Science Council

See also
 Dietary Reference Values
 Guideline Daily Amount
 List of food labeling regulations
 Novel food
 Reference Intake
 United Kingdom food information regulations

References

External links

2000 establishments in the United Kingdom
British food and drink organisations
Food policy in the United Kingdom
Food safety in the United Kingdom
Food safety organizations
Government agencies established in 2000
Medical and health regulators
Non-ministerial departments of the Government of the United Kingdom
Organisations based in the City of Westminster
Regulators of the United Kingdom

Food Standards Agency


The term "person of color" (: people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the United States; however, since the 2010s, it has been adopted elsewhere in the Anglosphere (often as person of colour), including relatively limited usage in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, and Singapore.

In the United States, the term is involved in the various definitions of non-whiteness, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islander Americans, multiracial Americans, and some Latino Americans, though members of these communities may prefer to view themselves through their cultural identities rather than color-related terminology. The term, as used in the United States, emphasizes common experiences of systemic racism, which some communities have faced. The term may also be used with other collective categories of people such as "communities of color", "men of color" (MOC), "women of color" (WOC), or "librarians of color". The acronym "BIPOC" refers to "black, indigenous, and other people of color" and aims to emphasize the historic oppression of black and indigenous people. The term "colored" was originally equivalent in use to the term "person of color" in American English, but usage of the appellation "colored" in the Southern United States gradually came to be restricted to "Negroes", and is now considered a racial pejorative. Elsewhere in the world, and in other dialects of English, the term may have entirely different connotations, however; for example, in South Africa, "Coloureds" refers to multiple multiracial ethnic groups and is sometimes applied to other groups in Southern Africa, such as the  of Namibia.

History
The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style cites usage of "people of colour" as far back as 1796. It was initially used to refer to light-skinned people of mixed African and European heritage. French colonists used the term gens de couleur ("people of color") to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry who were freed from slavery in the Americas. In South Carolina and other parts of the Deep South, this term was used to distinguish between slaves who were mostly "black" or "Negro" and free people who were primarily "mulatto" or "mixed race". After the American Civil War, "colored" was used as a label almost exclusively for black Americans, but the term eventually fell out of favor by the mid-20th century.

Although American activist Martin Luther King Jr. used the term "citizens of color" in 1963, the phrase in its current meaning did not catch on until the late 1970s. In the late 20th century, the term "person of color" was introduced in the United States in order to counter the condescension implied by the terms "non-white" and "minority", and racial justice activists in the U.S., influenced by radical theorists such as Frantz Fanon, popularized it at this time. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was in wide circulation. Both anti-racist activists and academics sought to move the understanding of race beyond the black–white dichotomy then prevalent.

The phrase "women of color" was developed and introduced for wide use by a group of black women activists at the National Women's Conference in 1977. The phrase was used as a method of communicating solidarity between non-white women that was, according to Loretta Ross, not based on "biological destiny" but instead a political act of naming themselves.

In the twenty-first century, use of the term and the categorization continued to proliferate: for example, the Joint Council of Librarians of Color (JCLC), a recurring conference of the American Library Association, which uses the "of color" designation for its five ethnic affiliate associations. They include: the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, the American Indian Library Association, the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, the Chinese American Librarians Association, and REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking.

BIPOC
The acronym BIPOC, referring to "black, indigenous, (and) people of color", first appeared around 2013. By June 2020, it was, according to Sandra Garcia of The New York Times, "ubiquitous in some corners of Twitter and Instagram", as racial justice awareness grew in the United States in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. The term aims to emphasize the historic oppression of black and indigenous people, which is argued to be superlative and distinctive in U.S. history at the collective level. The BIPOC Project promotes the term in order "to highlight the unique relationship to whiteness that Indigenous and Black (African Americans) people have, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to white supremacy for all people of color within a U.S. context".

Political significance
According to Stephen Satris of Clemson University, in the United States there are two main racial divides. The first is the "black–white" delineation; the second racial delineation is the one "between whites and everyone else", with whites being "narrowly construed" and everyone else being called "people of color". Because the term "people of color" includes vastly different people with only the common distinction of not being white, it draws attention to the perceived fundamental role of racialization in the United States. Joseph Tuman of San Francisco State University argues that the term "people of color" is attractive because it unites disparate racial and ethnic groups into a larger collective in solidarity with one another.

Use of the term "person of color", especially in the United States, is often associated with the social justice movement. Style guides from the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Mount Holyoke College all recommend the term "person of color" over other alternatives. Unlike "colored", which historically referred primarily to black people and is often considered offensive, "person of color" and its variants refer inclusively to all non-European peoples—often with the notion that there is political solidarity among them—and, according to one style guide, "are virtually always considered terms of pride and respect".

Criticism
Many critics of the term, both white and non-white, object to its lack of specificity and find the phrase racially offensive. It has been argued that the term lessens the focus on individual issues facing different racial and ethnic groups, particularly African Americans.  Preserving "whiteness" as an intact category while lumping every other racial group into an indiscriminate category ("of color") replicates the marginalization that the term was intended to counter. Other commentators state that the term "people of color" is a misnomer and an arbitrary term in which people who are white are mislabeled as people of color. People of color also encompasses various heterogeneous groups which have little in common, with some arguing that American culture as a whole does not deliberate on economic inequality or issues of class.

Political scientist Angelo Falcón argues that the use of broad terms like "person of color" is offensive because it aggregates diverse communities and projects  "a false unity" that "obscure[s] the needs of Latinos and Asians". Citing the sensitivity of the issue, Falcón suggested that there should be "a national summit of Black, Latino and Asian community leaders" to discuss "how can the problem of the so-called 'black/white binary' be tackled in the way it respects the diversity it ignores and helps build the broader constituency for racial social justice that is needed in the country" and to "open the way for a perhaps much-needed resetting of relations between these historically-discriminated against communities that can lead to a more useful etymology of this relationship".

The use of the phrase person of color to describe white Hispanic and Latino Americans and Spaniards has been criticized as inaccurate. The United States census denotes the term "Latino" as a pan-ethnic label, rather than a racial category, and although many Latinos may qualify as being "people of color", the indiscriminate labeling of all Latinos as "people of color" obscures the racial diversity that exists within the Latino population itself, and for this reason, some commentators have found the term misleading.

BIPOC
The term BIPOC does not appear to have originated in the Black and Indigenous American communities, as it had been adopted much more widely among white Democrats than among people of color in a 2021 national poll. Asian and Latino Americans have often been confused as to whether the term includes them. The centering of Black and Indigenous people in the acronym has been criticized as an unnecessary, unfounded, and divisive ranking of the oppression faced by the communities of color. The acronym's purposeful and definitional assertion that the historical and present-day suffering experienced by Black and Indigenous people is more significant in kind or degree than that of other non-white groups has been described as casting communities of color in an oppression Olympics that obscures intersectional characteristics, similarities, and opportunities for solidarity in the struggle against racism. Critics argue that the systems of oppression foundational to U.S. history were not limited to the slavery and genocide suffered by Black and Indigenous Americans, but also included the Asian American and Latino American experiences of oppression under the Chinese Exclusion Act and the doctrine of manifest destiny. Noting that "Black and Indigenous people are not at the center of every contemporary racial issue", other commentators have found it problematic that the ascendancy of the term coincided with the pronounced rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic. By rendering Asian Americans as an unnamed "remnant", critics argue that the acronym renders the racial discrimination they experience invisible, thereby perpetuating harmful model minority and perpetual foreigner stereotypes. Some critics advocate a return to "POC" for its emphasis on coalition-building, while others call for a contextual approach that names "the groups actually included and centered in the arguments themselves". The term has also been criticized for being redundant.

See also
 Anglo-Indian
 Black, Asian and minority ethnic
 Colorism
 Discrimination based on skin color
 Model minority
 Oppression Olympics
 Perpetual foreigner
 Political blackness
 Political correctness
 Race
 Race and ethnicity in the United States
 Statistext
 Visible minority

References

External links

Ethnonyms
Race in the United States
Social groups
Sociological terminology
Linguistic controversies

Person of color


Jean Joseph Nicolas Guillaume Lekeu (; 20 January 1870 – 21 January 1894) was a Belgian composer.

Life
Lekeu was born in Heusy, a village near Verviers, Belgium. He originally studied piano and music theory under Alphonse Voss, the director of the brass band at the local conservatory. In 1879, his parents moved to Poitiers, France. He continued to pursue his music studies independently while at school, composing his first piece at the age of 15. From 1885 onwards, he regularly composed new music, especially chamber music, and studied harmony and violin from 1887 under Octave Grisard.

In June 1888, his family moved to Paris where he began to study philosophy. He was introduced to the works of Téodor de Wyzewa and continued his studies under Gaston Vallin. In August 1889, he traveled to Bayreuth to see the operas of Richard Wagner. On his return, he studied counterpoint and fugue privately with César Franck. Franck encouraged him to continue composing; after Franck's death in the autumn of 1890, Wyzewa introduced him to Vincent d'Indy, who taught him orchestration and encouraged him to compete for the Belgian Prix de Rome, awarded in Brussels. In 1891, he won second prize in the competition for the cantata Andromède.

In 1892, d'Indy introduced Lekeu to Octave Maus, then secretary of Brussels-based Le Cercle des XX. Eugène Ysaÿe commissioned a work from him, the Violin Sonata in G major, which premiered in March 1893, and is his most famous and most often recorded work.

Lekeu contracted typhoid fever from a contaminated sorbet in October 1893. He died in his parents' home in Angers on 21 January 1894, the day after his 24th birthday. On 26 January 1894, he was buried in a small cemetery in Heusy.

Musical style and influences
Lekeu's personal style was present in his earliest compositions. In 1887, he said "Bien plus, ce sera bizarre, détraqué, horrible, tout ce qu'on voudra; mais, du moins, ce sera original" ("Even more, it will be weird, mad, horrible, anything you like, but at least it will be original").

Lekeu's string quartets were inspired by Beethoven, and exposure to Wagner's operas at Bayreuth influenced his approaches to melody. He described this as "des mélodies de telle longueur qu'un seul exposé suffisait à parfaire ... un morceau de musique"
("melodies of such length that a single presentation was sufficient to complete ... a piece of music").

His primary influence was Franck. Many of his works are characterized by a certain melancholy: in his own words, "la joie [est] mille fois plus difficile à peindre que la souffrance" ("joy is a thousand times harder to paint than suffering").

His larger compositions are cyclic in structure; that is, themes in his works will often recur from movement to movement, something no doubt inherited from a long tradition of nineteenth-century European composers, as well as from many works of Franck and d'Indy. The recurring themes in the violin sonata have led some scholars to suggest that it was an inspiration for the Vinteuil Sonata, an imaginary work described by Marcel Proust in In Search of Lost Time. However, the structure imagined by Proust is also similar to the violin sonata by Franck.

His style, prophetic of early-twentieth-century avant-garde French composers like Satie and Milhaud, was influenced by Franck, Wagner and (especially in the Trio) Beethoven, though these influences did not manifest themselves as mere imitation. In general, Lekeu is regarded as a highly talented composer whose death cut short a promising musical career.

Compositions

Lekeu composed about 50 works, and left a number of unfinished compositions at the time of his death. Two of these, a Cello Sonata and his Piano Quartet, were completed by d'Indy. All have been recorded at least once, and several of them more than once, notably the Violin Sonata in G Major and the Piano Trio in C minor. The first time Piano Sonata in G minor had been completely performed on live by pianist Paweł Albiński in Kraków, Poland on 20 August 2014.

Significant works

Choral
 Chant lyrique, for chorus & orchestra (poem by Lamartine) (1891)
 Andromède. Poème lyrique et symphonique, cantata (in 2 acts) for soprano, tenor, baritone, and bass soloists, chorus, and orchestra (text by Jules Sauvenière) (1891)

Songs
 Two poems of Lamartine, for voice & piano (1887)
 La Fenêtre de la maison paternelle
 Les Pavots
 Two songs with words by Lekeu, for voice & piano (1889)
 Quelque antique et lente danse
 L'ombre plus dense
 Chanson de Mai, song for voice & piano (text by Jean Lekeu) (1891)
 Plainte d'Andromède, for soprano & piano sextet (string quartet and doublebass) (1892)
 Trois Poèmes, for voice & piano (also arr. for unaccompanied soprano) (words by Lekeu) (1892)
 Sur une tombe
 Ronde
 Nocturne (also arr. for mezzo-soprano & piano quintet)

Orchestra
 Introduction symphonique aux Burgraves (Overture after Victor Hugo's Les Burgraves) (2 mvts), for orchestra (1889)
 Barberine, Prélude (Prélude au 2e acte) (Prelude to Act II of the opera Barberine), for orchestra (1889)
 Chant de triomphale délivrance, Étude symphonique (Première Étude symphonique), for orchestra (1889–90)
 Hamlet. Étude symphonique (Deuxième Étude symphonique) (Hamlet et Ophélie), for orchestra (2 mvts) (1890)
 I. Hamlet
 II. Ophélie
 Les Fleurs pâles du souvenir, Adagio pour quatuor d'orchestre, for string orchestra (with violin solo) (1891)
 Fantaisie sur deux airs populaires angevins (Fantasy on two Angers folktunes), for orchestra (also for piano 4-hands) (1892)

Concertante and ensemble works
 Fantaisie contrapuntique sur un cramignon liégeois (Contrapuntal fantasy on the Liège Cramignon), for chamber orchestra (with choreography for the individual musicians) (1890)
 Épithalame, for organ & string orchestra (with 3 trombones) (1891)
 Larghetto, for cello & string orchestra (with 2 horns & bassoon) (1892)
 Introduction et Adagio pour tuba et orchestre d'harmonie (tuba & wind orchestra) (1892)

Chamber music
 Quatuor (String Quartet) in G major, (in 6 mvts) (1888)
 Sonate (Cello Sonata) in F major (in 4 descriptive mvts) (1888)
 Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle (Trio à clavier) (Piano Trio) in C minor (in 4 mvts) (1889–91)
 Sonate pour piano et violon (Violin Sonata) in G major (in 3 mvts) (1892–93)
 Quatuor a clavier (Piano Quartet) in B minor (2 mvts) (1892–94)

Piano
 Berceuse et Valse (Pot-pourri), for piano (1887)
 Morceaux égoïstes, for piano (7 pieces) (1887–88)
 Morceau (a fantasia on a Cramignon or Walloon folk dance melody), for piano 4-hands (1889)
 Sonate (Piano Sonata) in G minor (in 5 mvts) (1891)
 3 Pièces, for piano (1892)
 Chansonette sans paroles
 Valse oubliée
 Danse joyeuse

References

External links

 Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel now houses most works and manuscripts of Lekeu, after the bankruptcy of CeBeDeM in 2015.

1870 births
1894 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century Belgian male musicians
Belgian classical composers
Belgian male classical composers
Concert band composers
Deaths from typhoid fever
Infectious disease deaths in France
People from Verviers
Prix de Rome (Belgium) winners
Pupils of César Franck
Romantic composers
Walloon people

Guillaume Lekeu


The 1972 Democratic National Convention was the presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party for the 1972 presidential election. It was held at Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida, on July 10–13, 1972.

Yvonne Braithwaite Burke was vice-chair, becoming the first African American and the first woman of color to hold that position.

The convention nominated Senator George McGovern of South Dakota for president and Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri for vice president. Eagleton withdrew from the race just 19 days later after it was said that he had previously undergone mental health treatment. He was replaced on the ballot by Sargent Shriver of Maryland, a Kennedy in-law.

References

1972 in the United States
1970s in Florida
United States presidential nominating conventions
Democratic Party (United States)
July events

1972 Democratic National Convention


John Harris (1756–1846) published children's books in England from the end of the 18th century to the mid-19th century, creating innovative and popular new styles. Apprenticed to Thomas Evans he found employment for a short time with John Murray before joining John Newbery's publishing firm.

Harris took over Newbery's firm which had passed first to his son Francis Newbery, then to his nephew and nephew's wife. Harris had managed the firm for Elizabeth Newbery and in 1801 bought it from her, renaming in his own name. Noticing that  playful books such as Mother Goose's Melody sold better than Evangelical fare, in 1805 he issued The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog which departed from Newbery's publications in that it was completely devoid of didacticism and was meant to amuse. The first edition of the book was illustrated with copperplate engravings, one on each page, unlike Newbery's sparse use of woodcuts, and of a relatively small size (4 inches by 5 inches). Mother Hubbard sold well and began a run of similar books such as Whimsical Incidents in 1805 followed a year later by an edition of John Gilpin with colour illustrations.

The Butterfly's Ball was published in 1807 to great success, followed by a number of similar titles as well as a few cautionary tales such as The Cowslip by Daisy Turner.  In 1807 he added a series he called Harris' Cabinet of Amusement and Instruction with stories that were meant to entertain children, unlike works written by authors such as Mrs. Trimmer who wrote to instruct children. by 1809 he had a catalogue of 419 titles that he sold from his premises at St Paul's Churchyard.

In 1819 the firm became J. Harris & Son, and at that time they began to issue newly illustrated colour editions of editions previously published without colour illustrations.  The books were expensive by the standard of the time, costing "One Shilling plain and Eighteen Pence coloured". By the end of the Regency era Harris, was one of the pre-eminent publishers of children's books in London. Not all of his work was well-received and appreciated. His book of tongue twisters, published in 1820, was denigrated as "degrading trash" and the colourful illustrations he included in his publications were called by one reviewer "gaudy glare". The books, however, continued to sell well and be popular.

Children's literature scholar Jack Zipes explains that because of traditional Puritan laws against fairy tales, English publishers had to import fairy stories of French and German origin. Harris published a volume of fairy tales in 1802, Mother Bunch's Fairy Tales,  and in 1820 the firm published The Court of Oberon; or, The Temple of Fairie which children's literature and folklore scholar Iona Opie calls "an important volume" . Containing stories from Charles Perrault, Madame d'Aulnoy and The Arabian Nights, it was published the same year Taylor translated the Brothers Grimm's compilation of tales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (illustrated by George Cruikshank).

The firm published instructional book as well, although titles such as Pug's Tour Through Europe; or, The Travell'd Monkey "written by Himself" (1824), with verse on the lower part of page and hand-coloured illustrations, though educational, was equally a satiric vision of "the typical gentleman's 'grand tour' of the Continent, a narrative that packages … British imperialism and cultural superiority together with satirical observations…"

In the 1820s the firm turned to hand-coloured woodcuts which achieved a more colourful look than the previously produced monochromatic copperplate illustrations. In 1824, Harris turned the firm over to his son and in 1843 it was bought by Griffith and Farran. John Harris died three years later.

References

Further reading

External links

 Works by John Harris at Toronto Public Library

British children's book illustrators
English engravers
Publishing companies based in London
English printers
1756 births
1846 deaths

John Harris (publisher)


Elisabeth Christina von Linné (1743–1782), was a Swedish botanist, daughter of Carl Linnaeus and Sara Elisabeth Moræa.

Life
There is no direct information about the education of Elisabeth Christina von Linné, as it is not clearly mentioned anywhere. However, as her brother was given home tuition in preparation for university studies, and she is confirmed to have socialized with the students of her father, who were also tutored in the family home, it is seen as likely that she was given home tuition by the same teachers as her brother and her father's students, perhaps also with them, which was not uncommon in Sweden at the time.

She was acquainted with several of her father's students, among them Erik Gustaf Lidbeck and Daniel Solander, the latter of whom she reportedly wished to marry, but as he did not return from his expedition, the marriage never took place.

Linné married major Carl Fredrik Bergencrantz in 1764 and had two children. However, she left her husband and moved back with her parents a couple of years after her wedding because she had been subjected to spousal abuse: she died at the age of 39, and her children also died before adulthood. Her mother blamed her early death upon the abuse she had been subjected to while married.

Scientific activity
Linné is referred to as the first female botanist in Sweden in a modern sense, despite not having received any formal education.
It was she who first described the optic phenomenon in which the Tropaeolum majus appears to send out small bursts of lightning, now named the Elizabeth Linnæus Phenomenon (or, in German, ) after her.

She published her observations on the topic in a paper for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1762, aged 19. The paper is called  ("Concerning the flickering of the Indian crass"). This paper came to the notice of the English doctor, scientist and poet, Erasmus Darwin. He included a reference to it in his "The botanic garden, part II, containing the loves of the plants" (1789) in which he also reported a confirmation of the phenomenon by M. Haggren, a lecturer in natural history who had published his findings in Paris in 1788.

The poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge read Darwin's accounts early in their careers and, influenced by these accounts, they referred to flashing flowers in their poems, Wordsworth in "I wandered lonely as a cloud" also called "Daffodils" ('They flash upon that inward eye') and Coleridge in his "Lines Written At Shurton Bars..." ('Flashes the golden-coloured flower / A fair electric flame'). Thus Elizabeth Linnaeus came, through Darwin, to influence the pioneers of English Romantic poetry.

References

Further reading

1743 births
1782 deaths
18th-century Swedish botanists
18th-century Swedish women scientists
Swedish women botanists
Swedish taxonomists
Women taxonomists
Carl Linnaeus
Age of Liberty people
Swedish nobility

Elisabeth Christina von Linné